S6E6: Resilient Cyber w/ Crystal Poenisch

In this episode of Resilient Cyber, Chris Hughes speaks with Crystal Poenisch, Director of Product Marketing at ChainGuard, to explore the nuances of cyber product marketing and how to discern signal from noise in a crowded market.

Key Highlights:

• Cyber Marketing’s Reputation: Crystal discusses the challenges and bad reputation that cyber marketing faces. She emphasizes that bad marketing—which lacks empathy, research, or technical understanding—creates disconnects between sales and the technical community. Successful marketing must be authentic, technically informed, and customer-centric.

• Balancing Technical Knowledge: Crystal shares her journey from a non-traditional background into technical marketing, learning to balance being technical enough to understand the product while translating its value to different audiences. She stresses the importance of empathy, research, and pattern recognition when crafting effective marketing strategies.

• Engaging Engineers: Crystal specializes in pulling engineering talent into public-facing activities by asking the right questions, aligning their work with business value, and highlighting their contributions in ways that resonate with customers and the broader market.

• Authentic Marketing: The key to successful marketing in the cybersecurity space is authenticity. Crystal cites examples like ChainGuard, Wiz, and CrowdStrike for their impactful, authentic marketing that resonates with both practitioners and business leaders.

• Bridging Technical and Marketing Worlds: Crystal highlights the importance of collaboration between marketing and technical teams. Effective marketing requires cross-functional communication to ensure technical achievements are communicated clearly to the business and sales side, as well as customers.