Cybersecurity Marketers: Know Thy Product

by Rachel Bishop, Sr. Content Marketing Manager at Authentic8

Website: https://rachel-bishop.com/

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It’s a new day in Cybersecurity Marketing Land, and for you, a tenured marketer, the world is your oyster. You know the brand like you know your own name. You can map a buyer’s journey in your sleep. You know exactly what your prospects care about—and you’re creating content that speaks to those priorities.

That’s awesome! But when’s the last time you used the product you passionately market?

A Noble Marketing Goal: Know Thy Product

I’ve seen it in my career, and you’ve seen it in yours, too: marketers who know the product without knowing it. These marketers can draft up any collateral you imagine, but they’ve never “stepped foot” into the product.

And while that can lead to good marketing, great marketing requires more hands-on experience.

Even if you’ve gone through every single sales sheet and how-to guide on your product (with ChatGPT’s help, if you’re like me), nothing beats firsthand experience with your product.

That how-to guide tells you exactly where to click, sure. But are you in for a clunky UX to click that button in your platform? As you work through the directions, do you find a few steps missing? Or they may need a clarifying note or screenshot.

These insights are most readily available to marketers who’ve used the product themselves. And these specific insights help you build credibility and authority with your audience.

How to Get to Know Your Product

Getting to know your product doesn’t mean you have to go “full nerd” overnight. It just means you should spend some time in your product (a demo environment, if possible), clicking around and following a how-to guide to accomplish something. (Pro tip? Take notes on things like ease of completion, screenshot helpfulness, UX, etc. Those might help you generate high-performing content later.)

Here are a few ways to deepen your product knowledge.

Take That Course You Offer

Remember how I said you don’t have to go “full nerd” to learn your product? Well, ignore that—just for a moment. 😅

A few years ago, I was asked to lead marketing at Level Effect, a cybersecurity training company. Our main product was the Cyber Defense Analyst Program, a 14-week, 4-nights-per-week, live-instruction course that promised no frills or fluff—just real-world cybersecurity training.

I took my own advice: I signed up for the course as a student and devoted 14 weeks to it.

As an English/comms grad, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done as a cybersecurity marketer. To date, what I learned in the course continues to propel me in my cybersecurity content marketing career.

Enrolling in the course gave me an incomparable view of what I was marketing. I could see firsthand where my classmates struggled, how the course was taught, what was taught, and our key differentiator: live instruction four nights a week with skilled instructors who’d “been there, done that” at the NSA.

Could I have learned about those differentiators by reading about the course and its instructors? For sure. Would I have been able to relate to prospects the same way that taking the course allowed me to? Absolutely not. In fact, taking the course helped me capture another way to market the course to unsure prospects: “If a marketer can do it, so can you.”

If you offer any training at your org, consider taking it as a student. You’ll learn your product inside and out and gain invaluable insights into what the experience is like for folks who enroll in your training. The bonus? You’ll learn a thing or two about your product or cybersecurity as a whole!

Follow Along With That How-to Guide

It’s time to break out all those knowledge base articles and put them to good use.

Running through those knowledge base guides and how-to articles gives you incredible insights into the user experience. This is true especially if you aren’t super familiar with the technical side of your product. You can stand in as a blank slate, much like a novice user, and identify the knowledge gaps that are critical to fill before the documentation can make sense.

A rare instance where not knowing the answers pays off? Count me in!

Find Your People for Next Steps

One of the first things I do when joining a new org is find my people. The guy in sales who’s ready to give me feedback on the types of collateral he needs to seal deals. The stellar SME who’s up for a quick chat to explain a topic to me in simple terms. The product marketer who knows the ins and outs of the product—and what’s on the roadmap.

Once I find my people, I work hard to form bidirectionally beneficial relationships with them. They know I'm available if they need a quick proofread or copyedit. And if I need something to be explained to me like I’m five, they return the favor. Building these relationships has been instrumental at every single job I’ve had, especially those in SaaS, where it’s beneficial for marketers to understand the product they’re marketing.

These relationships are also a lifesaver when random questions come to mind mid-project. You don’t have to figure out who to ask about what once you have that circle. You know exactly who to go to; if they don’t have an answer, they can tell you who does, which allows you to broaden your circle.

Know Thy Product, and Great Marketing Will Follow

Knowing your product from a user’s perspective isn’t really a “nice to have” anymore. It’s necessary to build credibility and authority. You’ll find yourself translating the knowledge you gained into relatable content that actually resonates with your audiences.

And let me be clear: You do not have to be the most technical person in the room. Just be curious, resourceful, and willing to invest the time into learning your product.

The more you know your product, the better you can market it. And that’s how high-performing, relatable, helpful content is born.