Ben (00:01.258)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Jeremy. Jeremy, how you doing today?
Jeremy Fuchs (00:07.253)
Doing good, thanks for having me.
Ben (00:08.93)
You bet. Jeremy, well, thanks again for being on the podcast. Before we dive into the subject, which I find super interesting, maybe share a little bit about your background and how you got into marketing and kind of what you're passionate about in the space.
Jeremy Fuchs (00:24.073)
Yeah, so I got into marketing in sort of a securitist fashion. My whole, pretty much my whole life, I wanted to be a sports writer, sports journalist. So went to graduate school for journalism. Got a job right out of grad school at Sports Illustrated, which was kind of my dream job. Was there for about 4 and 1 half years. And kind of experienced the unfortunate decline of print.
media while I was there. And so, you know, kind of experienced everything you can imagine, budget shrinking, staff shrinking, you know, eventually, you know, myself being involved in a layoff. And, you know, sort of had a, you know, I just got married and sort of kind of had to think, right, like, where do I want to keep going with the journalism route? Do I want to, you know, try something different? And, you know, outside of journalism,
I didn't really know what other sort of industries I would want to go to. I didn't spend many, I didn't spend many classes in math. I was always very focused on writing. I already had a graduate degree, so I didn't really want to go back to school. I had studied furtively for the LSATs and that was not going to happen. So there wasn't, it was either a state of journalism or go in either kind of the marketing PR route.
And I had some family members who had actually made similar transitions from journalism. And they were like, you should have done that years ago. So that's what I kind of decided to do. And kind of not really caring whether it was marketing or PR, just kind of wanted to get situated somewhere and then figure it out. And then, yeah, I got a job at a cybersecurity startup called Avanon that did email security or does email security as sort of the content.
manager and yeah, my first day was the first day of the New York City COVID shutdown. So I kind of kind of snuck in and it's been a pretty great ride ever since.
Ben (02:34.122)
That's awesome. That's really fascinating. So Jeremy is really passionate about repurposing content and you have some really cool, almost formulaic abilities to really do this and turn it into lead generation and things like that. But really, what got you started with repurposing content? Why did you start building kind of a repurposing machine?
Jeremy Fuchs (02:59.613)
Yeah, so I mean, our startup Avanon got acquired by a company called Checkpoint, it's a large cybersecurity public company in September of 2021. And so as we sort of made the transition into the larger company, you know, we became, you know, pretty much overnight, a global company, which was really exciting, but presented a challenge for what still is a small marketing team. So for us, it was, how can we get the most?
out of what we have and how can we sort of be in multiple places at once. And so one of the real benefits is that, of starting in COVID is that I started in COVID and didn't have anywhere to go. So I was able to sort of build a content library that was pretty extensive. And so, you know, it seems sort of silly to let some of that stuff kind of waste away. Most of it is still relevant.
to our audience. And there's a lot of it. And so for me, it was sort of how can I, I have this repository, how can I make all of our lives easier by repurposing it? And also, how can I make more of a global impact? You know, we went from a pretty much North America focused company to a global company and everything that goes along with that. So for us, the idea of sort of repurposing was a bit...
of survival. And so we kind of took two tracks. One, you know, we didn't stop. I think it's probably important to mention we didn't stop creating original content. You know, it's actually quite the opposite. We still create quite a bit. But what the repurposing program allows us to do is to focus our energy a little bit more on the new sort of, we call it breaking news stuff.
that we can put more of our energy and attention into making really good. So what we do is we take a topic. It's a topic that maybe we've written about a number of times or two or three times. Something that is a theme that's important, something that maybe it's something that only our product can do, or it's an important trend in the marketplace. Create a webinar based off that. We do a number of those.
Jeremy Fuchs (05:24.717)
call them easy lifts webinars. We have the content, we pretty much very easily create slide deck around it, a landing page. We bring in someone a little bit more technical from our staff and we have a bunch of sort of favorite guests that we kind of go to and people who like to do that sort of thing. And that's a webinar, do a 30 minute webinar and we have.
Our demand team does an amazing job of doing all the invites and all that sort of stuff. And that's sort of rinse and repeat. We can do that. Global teams across the country can do it, across the world can do it in their language with any sort of regional things they might want to add or take out. And then that allows us to sort of pivot really quickly on any sort of the breaking news topics. So we're able to sort of create a...
a little bit of a content wheel. It's never stopping because we, you know, something, the biggest example of this is the big thing in the email security world has been QR code phishing over the last two to three months and with the unfortunate name of Quission, which we did not give. That is not a new thing, but it kind of randomly and suddenly took off in September-ish, August, September.
Ben (06:36.802)
Hehehehe
Jeremy Fuchs (06:48.013)
and became the only thing that customers and prospects were asking about. Like, can you protect against this because it's everywhere? And we can and we could, and we were, so we were able to keep it, but we wanted to promote that we could do that. Um, and it was something that we've done for four years. We were the first to market with it. So it was a unique advantage. It was kind of like, this is something where we can not only say that we.
protect against these sort of things, but talk a little bit about the history of innovation and why we came up with this feature, even though it wasn't a big deal and all those sorts of things. So we were able to put together a webinar that actually had our team on it, had another team in the company that focuses on mobile phones because that's obviously a big part of QR codes, while also keeping the content hamster wheel going at the same time. So we're able to, it allows us to focus on the
breaking new stuff and pivot really quickly. And there's always, I'm sure this is the same for every industry, there's always sort of a new thing that breaks or that happened, that people are talking about a new topic. So we're able to go to that without losing steam on the sort of standard messaging and things that are important to us. So we're able to get both without the small team, without having to scramble and make our lives miserable. So having that repository,
Um, makes it easy to just have, we're going to have a webinar this week and a webinar next week. We know what it's about. It's not going to ruin our lives and trying to create. And that way we're open for our energy and focus when new stuff comes along. Um, or even just a new idea based on something else, um, to, uh, to kind of go for it and try to make it as big as we possibly can. So.
It's sort of a two track philosophy and, you know, it really only kicks off this year. And, but it's, you know, webinars have been by far our biggest, uh, lead drivers and it's not even close. So it's working and I think, you know, we're going to see if we can, uh, can push it forward in 2024.
Ben (08:57.47)
That's fascinating. I love that. A couple of things that you mentioned that I think are really cool and worth double clicking on. Such a technical term, double clicking. But number one, with your webinar strategy, obviously you talked about, we want to prove that we can do this QR code stuff and keep people secure. You know, really the fact that you're showing your knowledge about the subject is a far greater sales pitch.
than saying, hey, we can protect you against QR code, you know, stuff. Instead of saying that, you're saying, hey, here's everything you need to know. You know, here's how it originates, here are the groups getting targeted, here's where most people are susceptible and where more people need to be security, you know, as a user, as a business, here's everything you need. And inherently, if you give that content, someone's saying...
Jeremy Fuchs (09:38.081)
Yeah.
Ben (09:53.202)
Okay, I know they know what they're talking about. They must have a solution. It's a far better pitch than just saying, hey, yeah, we take care of it. You know, it's actually the proof in the pudding, basically, before you ever have to put forth a pitch. I think that's really, really smart.
Jeremy Fuchs (09:57.226)
Yeah.
Jeremy Fuchs (10:09.661)
Yeah, and I think for all of our content, all of our content is a sales pitch. I mean, that's what we're trying to get to at the end of the day. We don't do a lot of content that's just purely helpful. You see a lot of that now where it's, here's a guide to X. And there's no, at least not explicitly stated product pitch. We're very.
Our motto is default aggressive. So there's always a sales pitch in what we're doing because that's at the end of the day, what we're going for. But, and we do include them in the webinars. I mean, we invite people to take a demo. We kind of show off a little bit. We're also trying to just be educational and make you maybe think about how is your organization doing with this?
Ben (10:46.871)
Yeah.
Jeremy Fuchs (11:08.329)
threat. So we're not in your face, we're sort of near or around it instead, but we're showing off product knowledge and a real history, particularly with this one, a history of working with it and innovating with it. And then we're like, all right, this is what we have to say. If you want to check it out for yourselves and test our claims, then by all means do that.
Ben (11:15.022)
Hehehehe
Jeremy Fuchs (11:37.825)
We, as we always say, don't take our word for it, try it out for yourself. But hopefully they've gotten enough, you know, use out of the conversation and trust from, you know, the people who are talking that they're more willing to, you know, come to a demo with an open mind, um, after having, you know, learned about a new topic or a topic that they're very familiar with, with a, you know, with a new angle. Um, so yeah, that's kind of how we try to approach things.
Ben (12:02.038)
Yeah.
I think it's genius. I think it's great. And obviously every market is going to be different, but for your market in particular, you know, it seems like there's a high level and a high need of, do they know what they're talking about? Yes, they do. Okay, now we can further the conversation. And I think that kind of kind of helps out. The other thing I really love is how you have created this repurposing machine.
But you've done it in such a way where you've allowed opportunities to take advantage of things that are current and pressing in front of mind. I've been in so many circumstances and businesses where there was so much going on that there was never an opportunity or freedom to take advantage of breaking news, news jacking, you know, whatever you want to call it, just current.
opportunities because we never quite had the machine as figured out that we never gave ourselves that flexibility and freedom. So I love that, you know, repurposing is not only getting more mileage, it's really just saying, cool, we don't have to worry about that as much. Now we can put genuine effort into new stuff. And for your industry, it seems like it makes sense. Something new is coming out all the time.
And I love how you've built that into the system. Is there like a split in time? How do you manage the two worlds appropriately? Just because I've never seen it done well, if I'm completely honest, how do you do that?
Jeremy Fuchs (13:36.885)
Yeah, I don't know that we have a split. I mean, maybe we should. I think, you know, we try to set out a webinar calendar of this is what we're going to do this month. We very rarely stick to that original plan. There's always stuff being added, very rarely taken away, always added. And so, you know, I think the key for us is, you know, getting that first plan down really well. All right, so these are the, you know,
five things this month that we're going to try to drive interest in around the world. Again, it's the same topic that we use around the world.
hoping that topic is, you know, we're lucky in that in cybersecurity and email security, there's always sort of a few through lines. You can always talk about phishing, you can always talk about AI nowadays, you can always talk about ransomware. So there's no shortage of sort of similar topics that are always on people's mind. And then we just get inundated now with requests for webinars. And so we...
make a very quick assessment like this QR code thing. It's like, yep, gotta do that. Like over the summer it was a Microsoft Teams base attack, so we gotta do that. And so we gotta like pivot really quickly. So I think what's helpful is that we know we have our set amount of webinars at least if nothing else in the world changes, we're gonna do this. They're not, we have a little bit of a formula for them.
We know who the speakers are going to be for the most part, and we have a line up rather that we kind of sort through, you know, based on availability. You know, that's sort of set. Somebody asks us to do a webinar or we come up with an idea, a new thing happens, and that just gets added on top of it. But we have sort of the basics of a program that we know we're going to stick with. And, you know, I don't want to make it sound like we're not paying attention to the.
Jeremy Fuchs (15:49.365)
the core quote unquote program. It involves a lot of attention and care, but it's a repeatable process. We know our demand generation manager, John Ryan, is a bit of a wizard and he can, within like an hour, create a webinar campaign and be done. We know how to do it, he knows how to do it, we know how to promote it. It's all very sort of replicable, right? You kind of copy the landing page, you add a little bit of text change and you're good to go.
So that's a machine that has been built up. And then that gives us the ability to focus on new and interesting things. Once we kind of finalize the topic and know what we're going to do and pick a date, then we just add it to that same machine. So as a content person, I'm very lucky to have a demand gen team that I can just throw stuff to when they know how to.
Ben (16:43.406)
Hehehe
Jeremy Fuchs (16:44.373)
you know, if you asked me to do it and promoted, you know, we'd be in trouble, but I can just toss it to him. He knows what to do. We spits it out and, you know, and away we go. And then I can focus on, I think the other thing too about that is that we're, we're very good at promoting the webinar without having the content finished. I think that's really important. Like I, the QR code, all right, we know it's gonna be about QR codes. I know what the basics are gonna be.
Ben (17:05.42)
Mm, that's great. Yeah.
Jeremy Fuchs (17:12.649)
I don't necessarily know exactly what we're going to say. I have a general idea just because I know the topic. I know what's kind of being circulated in the news about it. But I'm not waiting until I have a finished slide deck. I'm not waiting until I've done a practice run with the guest. Let's get it out. We usually try to give ourselves three weeks advanced notice to promote it.
Um, so that's three weeks for me to, you know, make sure myself and the guests are on the same page, which we always are because we're from the same company. Any Q, uh, any presentations I want to add any materials they want to create. They have the time to do it. Uh, we do a practice run a day or two before, which is really not a practice run. It's more to saying, all right, I'm going to start here and then you're going to go there and, um, and then we go. So.
I think that's also key. It's like, we're not waiting until it's finished to promote it. We're just constantly promoting. And I know that I'll finish what I have to finish beforehand. I know my team will do that. And we don't lose momentum waiting for, you know, Dex. And we're not waiting for Dex to get approved. And we're just going. And I think that's a huge asset because otherwise, you're just going to be stuck waiting for an approval that, you know, may never come. And then the moment's passed.
Ben (18:13.154)
Yeah.
Ben (18:38.034)
Yeah, I think it's genius. That's great. Well, Jeremy, as promised, this goes by really, really quick. Thank you for sharing your insights. Super valuable information. I can easily see a few other podcasts that we should do at some point in time. Your approach to international repurposing is really, really cool as well. I'd love to dive into that sometime. But if anyone wants to continue the conversation with you, how can they connect with you online?
Jeremy Fuchs (19:03.669)
Yeah, easiest place, LinkedIn. Jeremy Fuchs, it's my wedding photo. No beard as you see here. But yeah, Jeremy Fuchs, it'll actually say Avidon on my LinkedIn, I haven't changed it to be a company that acquired us, which I probably should. But yeah, feel free to reach out anytime.
Ben (19:22.99)
Perfect. Love it. Well Jeremy, thanks for the time today and have a good one.
Jeremy Fuchs (19:27.005)
Yeah, thank you so much.