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Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Actionable
Takeaways
Build Advisory Boards as Strategic Intelligence Sources:
Vali Cyber's CISO advisory board didn't just provide feedback—it identified their pivot opportunity. The board revealed that hypervisor protection was "something that keeps me up at night" for security leaders. This direct access to customer pain points enabled a data-driven pivot that transformed their market positioning from a "nice to have" to a critical infrastructure necessity.
Expand Your ICP When Product Changes Require New Stakeholders:
When Vali Cyber shifted to hypervisor protection, they realized cybersecurity teams alone couldn't make purchasing decisions. Infrastructure and operations teams had veto power over anything touching critical hypervisor systems. By expanding their target audience to include VP of IT, Infrastructure Engineers, and Architects, they found audiences who said "I have been looking for this—I didn't think it was possible."
Partner with User Groups for Webinar Scale and Credibility:
Rather than hosting standalone webinars, Vali Cyber partners with relevant user groups to co-host events. This strategy delivered 800 registrations for one webinar by combining audiences and leveraging the user group's credibility for messaging and promotion. The partnership approach creates "1 and 1 equals 3" results while maintaining cost efficiency.
Optimize for AI Search Algorithms as a Long-Term SEO Strategy:
Vali Cyber is proactively building Wikipedia pages for their company, products, and relevant industry topics like "hypervisor security" and "Scattered Spider attacks." Since Wikipedia is a key source for ChatGPT, this creates a foundation for appearing in AI-generated search results. Combined with strong backlink strategies, this positions them for the evolving search landscape.
Shift Paid Media Budgets from Search to Video Platforms:
While maintaining some Google Ads presence, Vali Cyber is reallocating budget toward YouTube and TikTok video campaigns. Their reasoning: ChatGPT handles top-of-funnel awareness questions, while video platforms engage prospects in the consideration phase. This creates a smoother retargeting funnel that aligns with how buyers actually consume information.
Balance Data-Driven Decisions with Calculated Leaps:
Megan emphasizes that while data is crucial, it's always a trailing indicator. When pivoting to new markets, you can't wait for perfect data. Vali Cyber conducted research on hypervisor platforms like VMware, Nutanix, and Proxmox to make informed decisions, but ultimately had to "jump" into the new market without complete certainty.
Lead with Radical Honesty in Technical Sales:
In cybersecurity, Megan advocates for complete transparency, even when it costs deals. When prospects ask if Vali Cyber protects Hyper-V, they answer "no, because Hyper-V is Microsoft-based" rather than deflecting. This honesty builds trust with infrastructure teams who are evaluating mission-critical security tools and don't have time for misleading claims.
Conversation
Highlights
In this episode of The Marketing Front Lines, we speak with Megan Howard, VP of Marketing at Vali Cyber. Vali Cyber has carved out a unique position in the cybersecurity market by becoming the first runtime hypervisor security platform. After initially focusing on Linux server protection, the company made a strategic pivot based on direct customer feedback and input from their CISO advisory board. The shift to hypervisor protection addressed a critical security gap that was keeping infrastructure leaders awake at night, transforming Vali Cyber from a “nice to have” Linux security solution into a “must-have” infrastructure protection platform that’s becoming a boardroom-level concern.
Topics Discussed:
- Strategic pivoting based on customer feedback and advisory board insights
- Expanding target audience from cybersecurity to infrastructure and operations teams
- Building effective webinar partnerships that drive hundreds of registrations
- Adapting marketing strategies for AI-driven search and ChatGPT optimization
- Transitioning marketing channels from Google Ads to video platforms
- Maintaining marketing integrity and honesty in a “snake oil” industry
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