Building Trust and Credibility Through Innovative Marketing Strategies

Overview

Welcome to "Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders," where we explore the ever-evolving landscape of tech marketing with insights from industry experts.

In today's episode, our host Kerry Guard is joined by Anri du Toit, together, they explore the intricacies of launching a book and integrating it into a comprehensive marketing strategy. Anri shares her journey from a creative upbringing in South Africa to navigating the challenges of the UK market. The conversation highlights the innovative approaches Zero Cybersecurity takes to build trust and credibility, including the successful launch of a best-selling book on Amazon. Discover how Anri and her team leverage the book to generate content, enhance brand visibility, and engage with their audience. Join us for an insightful discussion filled with valuable marketing strategies and career inspiration.

Transcript

Kerry Guard 00:02

Hello, I'm Kerry Guard. And welcome back to Tea Time with tech marketing leaders. If you are here with us say hello, we'd love to know that you're here and I am monitoring the comments. If you have questions, please ask away. We might not get to them today because as you all know, I like to take this up to the absolute degree that 59-minute mark. So if we don't get to your questions, still ask them and we will address them in the comments later on. But we're here for it. And that speed of fame life, we want to hear from you. We'd love to hear from you. I'm excited for today's conversation. So I won't be surprised if you have a ton of questions because I certainly do as we unpack how to launch a book and weave that into your marketing strategy. I have an expert with me today I have Andre Detroit. Well, not didn't say that. Right. I practiced it and everything. And I still don't think I said it right. Andre is gonna fix that for me in a second.

Kerry Guard 00:55

But let me give you a little bit of background. So Andre is a dynamic and results-oriented marketing professional with a proven track record of success in developing executing strategic marketing initiatives. With over a decade of experience, she has demonstrated expertise in business marketing, marketing, communications, corporate events, and digital marketing as a head of marketing at zero cybersecurity and IT support she leads a dedicated team to drive brand visibility and achieve business objectives. honoree. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Carrie, lovely to be on super excited. And just by the way, my name is pronounced perfectly. It's unrelated to a

Anri du Toit 01:34

well done.

Kerry Guard 01:37

Oh, you never know how it's gonna come out when you like, say it on air. And so I was like a little I don't know that. That sounded right. But yay, yes, that's important to me. So I'm glad that I got that right. And I'm so excited to have you. I did a brief synopsis from your LinkedIn profile. But what's the story of how you were able to accomplish all these amazing things? What do you do now? And how did you get there on right?

Anri du Toit 02:01

So you're so curious, just to basically what I do now, I'm Head of Marketing at zero, as you mentioned earlier, and I basically made sure that everything from brand awareness right through to bringing in leads, new leads, generating leads, that all happens under in within our department now,

Anri du Toit 02:23

basically, where I come from, so I actually was growing up, I was very lucky to have a very driven mother. And I think I got very I got my drive from her, basically. But I have a very business-oriented driven mother and she believed in raising a kid's

Anri du Toit 02:44

What do you call it? streetwise. So every other odd week, every once a month or twice a month, she would take us to one of our clients and take us through the whole production process. So we went to various different places, like for example, the place where they print newspapers, Caxton, and we saw how they print newspapers, we saw how they print magazines, the whole process up to printing how that worked. I was even in Cadbury, which was obviously one of my favorites being a child, I was in a chocolate factory shop or a factory. So I had all this exposure to all these different things. And I firmly believe that that has changed the way I look at things and how I'm to breed things and how are read the market. So ever since I was young, I had these weird ideas. So one of that one of the things, for example, always tell it is when I was in grade three now that is in that's like, eight or nine years old. We had a mock a day in school. And I went home and my mom said, Okay, what are you going to sell? So I said, No, I want to sell balloons that everyone can do. You can sell anything like literally anything. If you want to sell dolls, you can sell goals. If you want to sell burgers, you can sell burgers, I wanted to sell balloons with helium in them. So my mom's like, but why? So I said, because people will buy it is like no, no one's going to buy a balloon with helium. Like, it's going to do that. And I was adamant. That's what I want to do because the boys are going to buy it to make the voices sound funny, you know? And needless to say, so sorry, I missed the core part of the story. So I was in a very big school. It was great. One two matrix in UK and you as an American term, I think that's elementary right through to senior year. Okay, wow. Schoolboys would buy it because they wanted the helium. And I started running out

Anri du Toit 05:00

have balloons. So I started selling riffles. And our winter my mom came with, she obviously had to help me with the helium. And she came with tissues and everything because she did not think this is going to work. But she left me because, obviously need to learn things my way.

Anri du Toit 05:19

And she was like, I cannot believe this words. So ever since what I've always looked at things differently, I've always had a very weird way of interpreting things and reading my audience. And yeah, I believe that that has evolved the way I look. I've already mentioned that sorry, the way I look at things when interpret things. And that has a sacred path for me to guide me into marketing. So obviously, after school, I did a degree in corporate communications, because I wasn't really sure which

Anri du Toit 05:56

avenue I wanted to go into marketing. I mean, it's such a broad field, you can go into advertising, you can go into media, journalism, whatever you want, you know, so I studied Corporate Communications, which, which really covers everything. And after working for about two years, I realized that my strength is in reading my audience and setting up strategies. So I had a plan, and I've worked towards it. And that's where I am today. So you don't

Kerry Guard 06:27

love that story. Oh, my gosh, that is fantastic. Eight years old. And you figured out that of course, senior boys are going to want helium to make their voices sound funny. That is yes to that. Hmm, I just want to take that in. Because I think it's not often that we know it early age that we want to be marketers, right? When people ask us what do we want to be when we grow up? It's doctors, nurses, I want to fly to the moon. But it's never marketing. And so but so to find somebody who like figured this out so early on, and has been such a driven to make it happen in such a unique way. So let's talk about the industry you ended up in because you're that's such a creative story of where you began. And now we're, you're more on the b2b tech side. So how did you make that? How did you find yourself in cybersecurity, in particular, it's a hard market to get into. So what was your path into that?

Anri du Toit 07:36

I'm so glad that someone said that. It's a hard path because it is extremely difficult. It's honestly the most difficult and most challenging industry I've ever been in. You know, what I actually worked at at a software company many years ago, as in the marketing department, and I really enjoyed the IT side of it. I think it's because it's so dynamic. It's constantly evolving. It's, and I like the people. It's, it's really, I really like the people. So um, so yeah, I was in it, in b2b. b2b is extremely difficult. It's not as fun and creative as people, while people would generally think it's not as fun as clear and creative, we make it fun and creative. But do yes, yes. But it's not as fun and creative as the as the traditional advertising avenues. And it's most certainly not an easy path. So I was I ended up being an event management and from the I went back into the trade, into marketing into property marketing, and then we ended up in cybersecurity at zero. And I think it's just it's a passion for b2b, I look at things as I said earlier, I look at things very much differently to other people, I don't use the traditional, which is why we're here I don't use the traditional marketing thoughts that other people use for b2b marketing because that is it's so so so difficult to reach your market. So instead of only focusing on your b2b channels, focus on everything. And I think that's why I enjoyed it's such a challenge. And you're constantly trying new things, trying new avenues, things to do to reach your market and actually converted and convert them into hot leads. So yeah, that's cybersecurity, and cyber security has evolved it's actually become it's I think it's caught me in its web. It's interesting because I understand it now. Do well understand as a marketing person would understand it. But yeah, I enjoy it. It's really enjoy a good challenge. And that's 100% what cyber security is.

Kerry Guard 10:07

It Yes. And it does come down to the people that make it so challenging. And I and to connect with those people in a very intentional and authentic way, is really what needs to happen in the in the industry and as marketers meeting those folks in the industry. So it sounds like with your love for the IT Crowd, and with your ability to see things differently, you have this awfully dichotomy that sort of come together for you. In terms of your job now and what's going on. We're all human, and life is hard. So what's what's the challenge that's currently in your way when it when it relates to your day-to-day, this audience and the in the industry you're in? We're in?

Anri du Toit 10:52

Oh, my gosh. Okay, so our biggest challenge, so firstly, when I started, yeah. And it took me quite some time to figure it out. So when I started at zero, my biggest challenge was, I'm South African. And I know the South African market really well. And we've got a very humoristic channel, and we were a skier humoristic. Culture in the in the country, and we make fun of everything because the laugh laugh is so serious, you know. And then I started working for this UK-based firm, and I had to adapt and change my approach to understand the UK crowd and the UK audience. And it what that was extremely challenging. It literally took me about and I had no one to really do it from a marketing background to say, okay, but listen, you listen, listen, this is not gonna work. And this and this, and this is not gonna work. And we didn't have the data for me to go back on and understand why I didn't do so. So I literally ran campaigns. And I'm like, why is it not working? Why is it not working? It's amazing. It's so funny. Or it's, it's so it's so on point, because this would totally work. And then I realized I spoke with a few people in the UK, I did my research in that market, not only the market that I was used to, I did my research. And that's when that's how we actually got to understand the UK market. And your today, our biggest challenge is building trust or finding getting our buyer to trust us. So especially in the IT industry, it is extremely difficult. Remember, when people sign up with us, they sign up, it's a long-term commitment, you're not going to marry a guy. If you've known him for five minutes, you're not going to sign up with an IT company, if you've known them for into if you just make them and you've seen them twice on a screen. So that's our biggest challenge at the moment is building trust getting the buyer to trust us, so that we can convert them throughout the journey and one of them. So it's actually twofold, to be very honest with you. So the one side is they've been burned before. So they've been through three or four or five IT companies in the last 10 years. And the one was worse than the other. This one doesn't perform that one doesn't perform. They don't get a bang for their buck, you know. So they've been burned before, what's going to make zero any different? And Remember that that's very important because I'm going to come back to that what makes us different. So, the question is, what makes us different? Why do they need to sign up with us? The second thing is remember when someone signs up with an IT company, they give you they give the IT company the keys to the castle because we get access to their entire IT infrastructure and the entire system. So it's such a big risk employer company that you're not familiar with that you don't know. And obviously, it is for us we can go a lot of people have said Yeah, but you need to run brand awareness campaigns. Yes, we have. We've done all of that. The thing is on a brand awareness campaign, you and I both know that brand awareness is extremely expensive. I mean, if you don't have the budget for it if you have literally 1000 quid a month, okay, you can't run a proper brand awareness campaign because if you if you spend that on LinkedIn, you need to replicate it on the other channels. You need to replicate it in the tubes. You need to have a full on brand awareness campaign to really make a difference. We as So we've been struggling with it. I mean, we even have and this is, this has been really great. But we even have office space in London retail office space. In London. Retail. It's in Farringdon Road, we have retail office space. In London. It's a b2b do b2b business we don't do. We've got walk-ins. But we don't really, I mean, we don't service the public. But we've got the retail space in London for the main purpose of creating brand awareness. So yeah, so we've been through all these challenges really trying to, to stay, you can process you can grasp, as we're, we've been in the business for 18 years. Look at all our case studies, look at all the white papers, we've got all this knowledge, and everything, but it really doesn't resonate, because that's what we put up the right. Okay, so now so we ask the question, what makes us different? And that's how we came up with the book. Because now we've taken the case studies, we've taken a book with but Isaac our CEO face on the book, because He's the face of the brand, we've put him on the book. And we're giving this book to people, we're making it available to people to say, if you struggle with your cybersecurity, you don't need to spend a million pounds on it. You can, you can build your own strategy, your you can, you can follow the guidelines in the book. And, and you can have your you can implement your own cybersecurity strategy based on this, and you will be secure. So we building that trust with giving people guides as to how to do it with building the trust. And then that resonates with our audience, putting us in the trusted seats.

Kerry Guard 16:53

Okay, so in terms of the challenge you're currently facing twofold. One is building the brand awareness, which is expensive, which sounds like you had some creative ways of managing that. And I feel like that's a whole other show of itself. And two, two is the trust factor. And while brand awareness helps build trust, at the end of the day, to your point, it's still everything that we as the brand put out there. So how why should anybody trust us? If we're, if we're the one obviously, we're the one thing right. So let's come back to the book for a second, because this is where we're going to sit and, and I thank you so much for doing my job. For me. They're honoree and leading us into the conversation. I'm sorry, no, I'm good with it. I'm here for it. So in terms of the challenge, and building trust, and you said it, like how can people trust us if it's just what we're saying, Well, isn't the isn't that what the books doing? Sorry. Like, if you've, you've created the book of Isaac has written the book, that it's everything that you guys are saying, right? So why should people trust you, when they're reading the book? What's the difference between everything you've been doing from brand awareness standpoint to now putting out a book? So

Anri du Toit 18:06

okay, so we've got the book, we've launched it on Amazon, we got it to be seller status. So it's a Best Seller has set some and it was a best seller in two countries in the UK, as well as the US. And in three categories, which was amazing. It was like the cherry on top to find out that it was in two countries. And in all those categories, it was it was really amazing. But anyway, back to the story. So so we we launched the book, and became a best seller. So it's looking like it's the same concept as well as receiving an award. Okay, so you've got all these awards out there, that companies applied for now, some of those awards are really amazing. And I would, we got we had to we got two awards last year, which is really fantastic. However, because of all the awards that are out there that's paid for it kind of runs that kind of makes awards in general, even the good ones a little watered down. So yeah, so we've got those awards, and we're using them in our bread, bread packs. But it's it's really a it doesn't have the impact it should have. So what we've done is No one enjoys reading a white paper. I mean, when is the last time you downloaded a white paper? So,

Kerry Guard 19:34

I mean, I downloaded them but I didn't necessarily read exactly

Anri du Toit 19:37

no, if you don't I think you don't read them. So so so these that you've got white papers there that creates credibility. I'm not saying don't have white papers, you still need white papers because it adds to that. I mean, it's like it's in terms of building trust. It's very similar to marketing. You can't market on one platform. and expect a return on investment. Same with the past, you can't have one have the book and expect people to trust you, you need to have multiple different elements to build the trust and say, okay, there have been in business for 18 years there have a book that they've launched, the book was a beast sell on Amazon, they have white papers, they've got case studies, they've got testimonials. So they've got all these of this all four spots of a, of a book, a story of a of a trust pack that you are building, same with your marketing pack, that all the channels that you're marketing on. But I'm sorry, I'm digressing. Your question

Kerry Guard 20:42

you're saying is it comes back to credibility. So what the book is doing is that even though it's you putting it out there with everything that you have to say, it's building that credibility because people are buying it, and then it's actually showing up is best a best seller, right? You can't get will people into buying the book to the point where then it's a best seller across countries. So it's the heart of peace.

Anri du Toit 21:07

That's that's exactly what it is we've got. So we've got the book. Now. I mean, there are many companies out there who has books on the market, but it's really a book that sells the business. Now, this is a book that really at there is no selling, we removed all the selling elements, because there's nothing as horrible as reading a book and then the book redirecting you back to the to the original author, you know, the only reference we have in the book to say you can you can reach out to the author is to say, if you have any further questions, you can reach the author. Yeah, but we give we give as much as possible information because we want to help people, in addition to obviously, we want business, but it's not. That's not what it's all about. It's also about really helping people. And that's that's actually a completely completely different audience. But there's two sides to having a book that one is to help people but the other one is, companies who are looking for it, we're looking for an IT company comes onto our website, they see that we've got the book, they we've got the book, the book was a best-seller, it's affiliated with Amazon. And it just adds to the credibility it adds to the processing element. And that's where the book slots into the marketing strategy and why we're one of the reasons why we've done it.

Kerry Guard 22:33

The other thing you mentioned that I want to note too about the book, because I think this is important is it sounds like I haven't read it. But maybe maybe that will change after today. It sounds like the book basically is a framework of roadmap A, you could do this yourself. Even though these are all things we would do for you, we are giving you basically the playbook on how we do our jobs. So Have at it, you can do this all by yourself. And if you want us to do it for you, we can help you out. But at the end of the day, it's really about helping companies fit. You know, there's a lot of companies who want to start figuring it out themselves to see what this would even feel like. And then once they get to a point where they can't scale it, then they bring in they bring in help, right? So you're you're building that trust, if we know how to we know what we're doing. And you can start off you also, it feels like it also allows you to get in the door sooner with companies that wouldn't be ready for you yet. Yes,

Anri du Toit 23:32

yes, that's exactly what it is. So, the book is basically a framework, as you said, the framework of what you need need to have in place, it all boils down to the basics, and we highlight all the basics in the book. This is what you need. If you have these you are secure. Now, they are other things. But these are the apps that you can do to further safeguard yourself. Ever. These are the basics if you have this in place, you will be secure. Further further. In addition to the basics. We also have love, for example, the CEO of the Cyber Resiliency Center of London, Simon Newman, he is also featured in the book and we talk about his chapter or his chapters on sorry. So we talked about about sovereign essentials in his chapter and why it's important to have sovereign essentials, how it's going to help your business if you have sovereign essentials because it opens up a whole new market for you. We have an interview in the book about IoT with Professor Raj. Now Professor Raj is a professor at at City University of London, but he's also actually a head of out of zeros. Sorry, head of research and development of research in the development department. Sorry. So we've got an interview with them, we interviewed quite a few people that's very knowledgeable in the field, and will basically provide and provide you with that information. So that people can say, Okay, this is IoT, this is why it's important. This is how I can safeguard myself my business as well as my home, by using this book, and one yet, while already mentioned why it's important. So here's just to come back to your question, it is a guide, but also provides additional information to people to say this is this is the basics of technology and cybersecurity and why you need to have it in place.

Kerry Guard 25:48

It's a long game to Alright, I'm gonna get back on track. Andre, thank you for setting the book up. I think it's just important that while it was Isaac who wrote the book, what's in the book lends itself from a marketing standpoint, like you said, we do a lot of white papers, we put a lot of information out there. And we always are a little bit worried about giving away our quote, unquote, secret sauce. And Newsflash, there's no secret sauce, number one, number two, it comes down to showcasing what we know and how we know it, and letting people be able to try and do it themselves. I know that doesn't always pan out, but it's important to give them the right they're gonna go try and figure it out themselves regardless.

Anri du Toit 26:30

Yes, exactly the

Kerry Guard 26:32

playbooks to do it the right the first time.

Anri du Toit 26:36

Yeah, yeah, it's really like if you if you go onto one of few companies do it, they give them make these playbooks available, that people can meet you can do and they people try to do it, and then they end up usually end up not doing it or that's not our idea. So we've got a, it's a really, it's a full-on that the whole idea is to really help people. But like I say this, the marketing strategy, the book strategy is twofold. The one is to really help people. The other side is to build the credibility. So the person that's going to buy the book is not necessarily going to be our client, the they might become our client further down the line, but that's not our client, as to who we would necessarily service. The person that that goes onto our website and is looking for a new it supplier is going to see the book, they're going to see while it was a best-seller, while these customers really know what they're doing. Obviously, on the back of the book, we also have Isaac attending a whole bunch of events, we speaks about the book and not necessarily the book, but spirit shades is knowledge that's in the book and links the two. So we've got this whole marketing strategy behind it. And that all adds to the credibility and to the user looking for a mute it company redirects them to us. And it just helps them to actually trust us and show them. We really know what we're talking about. Yes.

Kerry Guard 28:12

Okay. Let's get into it, then. Because you're you're on the you're on the journey with us here, Andre, and you're leading us to the back. Let's talk first about as the marketing director, what role did you play in the production of the book?

Anri du Toit 28:26

So, okay, so basically, I was involved. Obviously, from the beginning, we sat together, we decided, Okay, we're gonna get this book together. So we made a plan. This is what needs to go into the book. This is how we're going to do it. This is the guide. We meet with a publisher, and we delegated responsibilities. Now. I don't write. I am not I can write, but that's not my passion. So I was driving the entire process from making sure that we stick to the deadlines. I was if you want to put it that way. I was the project manager of getting the book on the markets. I was liaising with the with the publishers. I was arranging the wild liaising with regards to the cover. Like as we were the base of the book was actually done before we had the cover sword. Believe it or not. We were up and down, up and down, up and down. We had so many options with book covers. And eventually, we decided on this one, but yeah, I was the project manager of the entire book up until launch day, okay. Then when it came to the launches, that's where I came in. And so in terms of launches, I was the drive behind it. I had an amazing team supporting me getting everything off the ground and getting that sorted and then after the launch and that is when my real work started. So because Now I am sitting with the book. And we have bolted into our entire marketing strategy content strategy for the rest of the year. So having a book is not only amazing for have for building your credibility, and really showing people that we know what we're talking about. But it's also amazing for marketing because it really takes that every month or every quarter sitting there thinking, Oh, my gosh, what are we going to talk about? It takes that away because now we've got 10 topics that we can use. And I've got 10 topics that I can use a while for 10 months, or depending on how long I use, I have a topic on a month per month. And I basically have a so the first topic is going to be IoT, we've got an IoT webinar coming up. We've got an IoT blog blog on IoT, we've got our newsletter on IoT, so and everything comes from the from the, from the book flow from the book. So that is now we are currently at to start. Yeah, so that's where I'm currently at. But to answer your question, sorry. See, I digress for a bit. But to answer your question, I was the project manager of the book. And I managed the whole process made sure that everything ran smoothly. In the background, I got the marketing strategy in place, how we are going to take this book to market. And now I'm busy with the content strategy, how we are going to build this into our monthly content, getting that off the ground, and just providing regular content to our viewers to our audience.

Kerry Guard 31:40

Okay, let's talk about the marketing strategy we get. So you helped the project manager this, you got it off the ground? How did you? I feel like this is twofold, right? We're, you have two jobs, you have to market the book, while still marketing the company? Or did you just put everything into the book hoping that the book would then market the company naturally? How was sort of the overall approach to the marketing strategy before you put the nuts and bolts in place? So

Anri du Toit 32:08

yes, you're correct. That's twofold 100% doable. So as I mentioned earlier, it's actually two different audiences. So the person they're looking for the book is not necessarily they could convert into our clients. However, that's not to say that they will be our client. We as someone going onto our website, looking for an IT company, it's just going to help them. So that's where my whole marketing strategy would be at is in this box of someone coming to the, to our website, but on the so so let's just quickly go back to marketing the book. So marketing the book, we've got PPC ads on Amazon, and that just runs with the books. In terms of cybersecurity, obviously, it's a very, very niche market. So we've got PPC ads running that's running in that in the background, and then we're just bringing that fruit we're replicating that on our socials and making people we have the booklet for example, for Christmas, we see these other perfect Christmas fill and stocking fillers. We tried to get a little get a little creative with it. However, it is b2c, it's not the bad, that's a b2c side. So there's learn line lines are really blurred quite a bit. Matthew on that, on that side in terms of the marketing the book on marketing the book, with our brand strategy in terms of the zero strategy. That is, that's me, that's where I'm very passionate about it. So that really comes down to working the book into our strategy that we're putting out there. And that's, that comes back to webinars. So we've got the webinar that we do on a monthly basis. The webinar also gets converted into a podcast. So we've got that running. And each chapter will form part of that it's the monthly topics that we use. And all of that goes back into the book and we pull content from the and then obviously, we also have Isaac, who's going to all these events and talking about the book. So as he gets invited to quite a few events, is actually on his way to an event in March from the he's going back to Landon, where he's got two other events. So and on these events at these events, we obviously make use of the book quite a bit, because it just it elevates his credibility as well as zero as credibility. And once again, coming back to our trust challenge at Build stress.

Kerry Guard 34:51

Let's talk about events for a second because I do think from my understanding, I have not written a book. It's on my wish list for some time in my life. so that I will write one, just to say that I did it to add value back into the world, but just you know, there's something about this idea of like putting so much wonderful effort into something and having

Anri du Toit 35:12

it becomes a baby, I'm going to write this book, and it's my baby.

Kerry Guard 35:19

Yes, but there's something that lends itself to events. So what I do know is that when you do write a book, one of the outcomes that you're sort of looking for and doing that is getting on a speaker circuit, essentially, where you go and you promote the book, along with essentially your x, in this case, Isaac's expertise in the space. So it sounds like did Isaac have a lot of speaking engagements before the book, did he have some, but the books elevated it, what's sort of been the transition in around events with the book being a catalyst for that. So

Anri du Toit 35:54

Isaac has been a speaker forever, because so and so he's always been a speaker, he's a very good speaker, especially when it comes to cybersecurity because lock me with marketing, having very weird and different ideas, Isaac has very different ideas when it comes to cybersecurity. And he tends to challenge the status quo. And so people love inviting him companies love inviting him onto onto the panel on panel discussions. Because it's a different opinion, it's a different view. And, and it's really true. He basically says that. So everyone says that you need to train your staff, in order to I'm just giving you some background, so that you understand what I'm talking about. So Isaac says that you need to train your staff in order to to prevent a cyber attack. Now, Isaac says you can train your staff. But that should not be be the only barrier, you need to have a system in place that's going to prevent an attack. Because having that pressure on your staff is going to that it's so much it's so heavy, it's it's You can't expect your staff to identify a hack, or to identify a phishing attack. It's it's crazy. So and that's, that's one of the things that he that's only one of the things that he sees, but it's my favorite. So. So so. So he, he gets he gets these invitations for, to speak on panel discussions quite regularly. After the book launch, it's been a, it's been more regularly and more regular. The only thing you mentioned that you want to launch a book, you want to write a book one day, if I can give you a little bit of advice, please don't do it in November. Because if the FDA to if you aim to get some traction of it, we suffered over December. So now people are getting breast journalists and everyone are only getting back now. And we are now starting to see an increase in requests for these kinds of events now because everyone has shut down for the Christmas period. So that was that unfortunately, the only thing for us is the timing was perfect in our minds, because it was, we're going to do it with our Christmas party. We're going to have this at this. We had this amazing launch in London, with our Christmas party and everything. And everyone, everything was fantastic. But we did use a little bit of speed in terms of reaching out to journalists over the Christmas period, but things are starting to pick up now. That's exciting.

Kerry Guard 38:51

Great advice. So it sounds like the timing was something you all wanted to say we're gonna do sort of Christmas parties here, but it can be there. That wasn't a happenstance of this was just one of the books happened to be ready. No, we

Anri du Toit 39:07

said we said it was it was a brilliant idea by myself. I'll take that one on the chin. I said, we only wrote this entire book in three months. That's an that's another tip that I can give you please do not write a book in three months.

Kerry Guard 39:28

Yes, no.

Anri du Toit 39:32

least six months. But we wrote this whole book and over a three-month period or a three-month period because I said, we have this Christmas party we're getting all of our clients to into one space. So let's not only launch it next year, let's launch it with the Christmas party. It's going to be amazing with all the lights and it's going to look so pretty, not thinking what's going to happen afterwards. So that was not only was if I look back at the ups and downs of the campaign, and I look at we what we did right and what we did wrong, the only thing I would 100% Change is the timing.

Kerry Guard 40:17

That is fair. So let's talk about how you're marketing you. So you launched the book, you're running PPC ads on Amazon and across some other channels for the book itself, which is, as you mentioned, a different audience fair. In terms of, let's let's sort of wrap up that audience, we can move on. Because I do think there's value in marketing to those folks for two reasons. One is like we said earlier, they might not be customers now. But they might implement your book, get to a good spot, and then scale and then realize they need some help, and they know exactly who to go to because they use the book to do it. That is a long game. The second thing is I imagine that it there is ROI in that you're selling a book. Yeah, right. So from outcome standpoint, when use what do you set out to sell the book? What were what were the KPIs of that in relation to the buying audience, were there any or which solely to create credibility for your, for your potential clients on the zero-it side?

Anri du Toit 41:31

So our KPIs because we've never really Isaac has, he was involved, he was a co-author for two books previously, but he wasn't as involved in the in the process as we are currently. So in terms of KPIs and those kinds of things, we didn't really have KPIs as to how many books needs to be sold our KPIs were, we need to be a best-seller, ideally, in two countries. So our the publisher was very confident that we will be in the US, she knows the US market, like the back of her hand. Okay? So she was very confident that it's going to be a best-seller in the US. She's not one she's not, um, UK-based. So she was not sure she said it's, we're going to try and work on it. But we're not sure. It's obviously a completely as I mentioned earlier, coming from South Africa, going into the UK market, it was it was interesting. Now it was the same for home. So it was a little touch and go in the beginning with regards to the to entering the UK market on the book launch side, because you have to, it's a different set of keywords a different way to approach the market. But we became we reached that target of becoming a best seller in two markets in cybersecurity and both and then we were also into other categories. So the one was, was malware and antivirus. And the other one was also IT related. I can't remember what the third category was. But they will all it it related categories, obviously because it's an it's a cybersecurity bug. So so that was the first KPI and then the second KPI was again, just quickly back to in terms of book sales. So we didn't have a specific API for how many books would be selling would be sold, because we didn't know what to expect. The you we literally had we were completely in the dark. Our drive behind this was to build the credibility to help us to say to companies look, you will, you can trust us, we've got a book on the market that it was a best seller, it was. It was an Amazon best seller. So these that brand affiliation. So that was our main goal behind the KDP behind. As I mentioned earlier, our main goal. Yeah.

Kerry Guard 44:07

That makes sense. So the any ROI from the book is like a nice to have.

Anri du Toit 44:13

Quickly, sorry, I forgot to add. You mentioned earlier companies, people who buy the book could become our clients. 100%. I'm totally with you on that. The problem we have with that though, is that because it's sold on Amazon and and it's the only downside. I mean, Amazon is amazing. People buy the book, and we we just pull the royalties to be very honest with you, we just pull the royalties because we don't have to mail a book. We don't have to worry about getting boxes or a courier company or anything. It's literally Oh, we don't have stock. And we don't have to worry about stock. It's all print on demand and it's available next day. So someone would go onto Amazon. They buy the book print on demand. It's available the next day. They worry about everything. So it's amazing, honestly. So said that is that's a massive upsell. The other thing with Amazon is, we're available on so many different platforms like for example, Goodreads bonnet, I think it's bonnet and noble. There are so many different platforms, they're all plugged into Amazon. Right? So. So when someone buys a book, it still goes through that premises. So we don't have to worry again. We don't have to get

Kerry Guard 45:35

into these bookstores either. That's amazing. Yeah, yes.

Anri du Toit 45:39

So it's not it's not physical bookstores, though, we are in the process of in the application process for an application process to get into bookstores. And that would be a nice to have. But, but we're in not so bad. But the online online platforms all plug into into Amazon. So they handle the entire they facilitate the entire process, and we don't have to worry about it. The downside is that Amazon does not give you that the data of who bought the book, so there's no way for us to remark it to them. And that is such a downside. So that's a downside. However, we it's yours it's, we hold the brand awareness,

Kerry Guard 46:29

though. So they knew who wrote the book, and they knew that if they needed help, they know where to go. So it's still there. But yes, it's yes.

Anri du Toit 46:39

You're sorry, you were saying? Sorry. Have you?

Kerry Guard 46:41

Have you seen an uptick though? I'm curious. You know, one of my favorite metrics to measure when it comes to brand awareness is branded impressions for organic search. So when you're looking at your keyword of zero it since you launched the book, have you looked at that metric? Have you seen an uptick in your brand? Is there do you feel like it's impacted you that way? So

Anri du Toit 47:07

we have not seen a brand in ours zero matrix if you look at the zero 100 People have seen zero so we have not seen an uptick in that. However, we have seen a spike in our on our website traffic, we have seen a spike on our an increase in our engagements on our socials. So we have seen an increase not in the brand itself. However, our socials, our website that will reflect that so and this was over the December period, just putting it out the

Kerry Guard 47:43

the thing you still had impact over December was it was a complete loss as amazing. Um, yeah. In terms of where you are today with zero alrighty, brand. And using the book, you sort of mentioned it, that you're using it from a content standpoint. What does that look like in terms of? Is it basically taking the book and boiling it down every month? Or are you having themes you mentioned, the other thing you mentioned is webinars, which I find fascinating because it didn't know they were still a thing since I thought they were sort of I'm under this notion that they you know, they were a thing during COVID, because we had nothing else to do. So I was I'm surprised that they're, they're working for you. And it's something you still do pretty heavily. So, how are you tying all of these pieces together? Give the webinar you the podcast, you have the book. And it sounds like you're using the book and the content to create topics across these other places. Okay,

Anri du Toit 48:45

so that is exactly what we do. So the book has 10 chapters, and each chapter will become a topic. So we will have a blog, for example, a C a is topic for the month, and our monthly topic would be C A so cyber essentials. So what we would say is cyber essentials, webinars. Yes, webinars are kinda thing of the past. But what we've started doing this will remove the presentation. So it's literally exactly not what we are doing. Yeah. You record it. And these are visual elements, but we also transcribe, we also take the audio, and then upload that and that becomes our podcasts. So it's actually podcasts if you want to call it that.

Kerry Guard 49:37

Well, I think the difference is, I think is really helpful because difference in my understanding, and you're gonna correct me if I'm wrong here because I'm totally for that. It's a devastating webinar and a podcast or like what we're doing right now is that there's no barrier to entry. So, in a webinar, you generally need to sign up and register and that's sort of behind a closed door over on zoom that You can't get to unless you register versus a podcast like we're doing where it's ours is live right now. And you'll be able to access it across all of the other channels at a later date. So is that sort of the difference? Are you still gating it for the initial recording? How are you? Okay?

Anri du Toit 50:18

So yes, yes. So you won't want to represent grants and terms of a webinar, you need to sign up. But we open, we open our webinars, so you have to sign up. Because ultimately, why do you want to do a webinar, you want to do a webinar because you want to start when people join, there's obviously in need for it within their business, so we want to reach out to them afterwards and see how we can assist them in order to to well, why did they join the CES webinar? Did they find it helpful? And how can we assist them? That's basically why we want the contact details. So we do ask for contact details on it. If they don't want to get it. We've got a live link that they can just join. Okay, so so it's it's really like a, we've got the if you want to call it like a it's not a double whammy, it's not a it's really like in between because we are asking, we're asking people to sign up. However, I have seen a like a very big decrease, let's say from from about June last year, where people do no longer sign up. So we used to get about 50 signups we now would get 25 or 50, signups and 30, people would join, we would now get 30, signup signups but the 60 people will join. So I've seen the swap in labs and that matric also so yes, webinars are, I can see them going out for as long as they are there, I'm going to try and get the contact details. Because they make the base leads, in all honesty, they make the base leads

Kerry Guard 52:03

the most engaged because they're willing to sit through an hour-long conversation. Clearly those topics really important to them. So they're definitely bottom of the funnel. But interesting that more people are now joining and listening in now that they don't have to give their details.

Anri du Toit 52:20

So just keep it up. And we keep it available for the public to just join. If they want to pre-register and have it in the calendar, they need to obviously, submit the contact details store.

Kerry Guard 52:35

So it's like a tip jar, or saying this to somewhere online. Or lately, I feel like email addresses have become like currency where you sort of vote with your email address of whether you're willing, you know because it's not just about giving your email address, it's all the follow-up that you are committing to be honest, right? We're not our audiences and stupid, they know that if they're giving you your email address, nurture emails, and then sales is gonna follow up with them at some point, right? So they're committing to that. And so if they're giving you their email address, they're saying, Okay, I know what's to come. And it's worth it to me. So I think for the people who are giving you their email address, now, it seems even more valid, that they're more ready to talk to you than even before because they don't have to give you their email addresses.

Anri du Toit 53:22

Exactly, exactly. And as I said, as I said earlier, when we reach out to these guys by phone call, they're almost always really good leads. So I can say 80% of them are amazing deeds. So as long as they are willing to sign up to get their contact details on signing them up.

Kerry Guard 53:46

No, I think that's a brilliant strategy. And I haven't heard that before. And I think that's a lovely. Best of both worlds. I think it's the best of both worlds. I think that's wonderful. So in terms of where the book is now and where you're headed in terms of it sounds like content is king, and you're gonna lean into that. How are you? You're using it as topic? Are you using the content in any other way? You said you mentioned it for social. Is it just to help you create topics? Are you actually repurposing the content elsewhere?

Anri du Toit 54:21

So we're repurposing the content. Okay. So our content strategy just to just to quickly Yeah, so our content strategy is basically We've got weekly blogs that we publish. We've got we put a lot of effort into our content. So we've got the weekly blogs that we publish, we've got videos that we that we post, we've got our C eyes, he often makes videos for us where he realized something like, for example, from the book, this is what happened. Or like, for example, in last year, November when we were just before the book launch, it was the Postal Museum was a hack it was a massive thing was like all over. And he made a video on it nice. Like, this is what happened if you want to know more the answers or how to do if you want to know how to prevent this hack the answers in this book, this is what they should have done. But you can find more info in the book over here. So he makes all these videos for us that we can also utilize. Then I'm also at the at the launch. So we had this amazing launch in London in November that bought in. I wanted

Kerry Guard 55:34

to be there have not

Anri du Toit 55:38

come.

Kerry Guard 55:41

I know. Oh, yeah. My heart was there. I promise. That's amazing. Yeah. So you had this beautiful launch in London.

Anri du Toit 55:48

Yeah, so we had this amazing launch, we brought our brand and and we really blended the lines between the book and the brand. So our our slogan or strap line, whatever you want to call it is crushed the chaos, okay, because we go in and we crush all your IT chaos. And we create a harmony. So, so we had these lights in this glass box, imagine this glass box. And we had all these lights that's like crazy busy and flashing. And it's like all different colors. It's pink, and blue, and purple, and green, and yellow, and orange, all these different confirm colors, flashing and just waving around and then dumbs down and it just settles down. And then it becomes green. And that's when zero comes in. Because we created the harmony, you know, so so we had all these amazing things at the launch. And so we arranged for a photographer and a videographer to be there. And they took stock footage stock footage for us throughout the night, which is now my my content for the for the remainder of the year. It's custom stock footage that's 100% on brand that we can use, we've obviously have full rights to it, that we can use in our content, when we put when we publish them with regards to the book. And so and I've done recently, and I cannot remember what you asked, sorry, no, that's

Kerry Guard 57:21

fine. So your content strategy. So this all lends itself from from using the book launch and the visuals from that into your content to taking the chapters and bringing them in as topics throughout your webinar and podcast. And then creating blog posts around the content of the book, as well as your brilliant CEO making these videos. If we could all get our CEOs to make brilliant content on a regular basis, man, good on you, Isaac, creating these videos for you that then point back to the book as well as then you can use throughout your social. So I love how it's all connected. I love how you bring it back to the book. I think that it's this beautiful jumping-off point that if you can create a book around what you do the so well that differentiates you and then draw from that for a whole year maybe longer. I mean, that is power. And thank you so much honoree for sharing this with us. I'm so grateful. Before we go, where can people find you and your great team and zero it?

Anri du Toit 58:23

So basically, if anyone has any questions, they can definitely go onto our website, which is 00 h e r o.co.uk. Or they can simply drop me a mail so they can also reach me on communications at zero again, Zed H E R o.co.uk.

Kerry Guard 58:45

And LinkedIn because that's where we can use softballs

Anri du Toit 58:51

shows I'm so sorry. So you can also see everything that we've spoken about. It's also available on our socials. So you can go and have a look at all our amazing photos and videos and everything. On our socials. We're on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook. And what's the one that I'm missing? Taking Twitter, Twitter, so you can you can go on to our socials. Definitely LinkedIn. I mean, we have very active on LinkedIn. That and our name on LinkedIn is zero cybersecurity and IT support. Yes,

Kerry Guard 59:27

and it's all linked here. So definitely, definitely check out there beautiful content feel inspired. I know I have Henri you're more than you're more than a marketer. You live in this gorgeous place in South Africa. What are you most looking forward to in 2024 Outside of work now that sort of the dust is settling with COVID and we figured out how to live with it to some degree?

Anri du Toit 59:51

Outside of work. Well, I would definitely say last year we had a very, very rainy year. Like literally our rains are only from from about June to August. And last year the rain started in March and it only finished in November. So I'm I'm looking forward to a very sunny year and so we actually traveled quite a bit. So we love going to places and exploring I live in the in Cape Town which is very close to the to the Winelands. So we often go My husband has a Harley Davidson and we often get onto the holiday and go and explore all these wind farms. So with that, I'm anticipating that it's not going to rain I'm very positive it's not going to be a rainy year and we are going to travel all over.

Kerry Guard 1:00:46

I love it. I can just see you and your beautiful hair blowing in the wind on these wine trails slipping away I am l basically gonna come down there and hang out with you so bad Andre This was amazing. I'm so grateful for this conversation. If you liked this episode, please like, subscribe, and share. This episode was brought to you by MKG Marketing the digital marketing agency that helps cybersecurity and complex brands get found via SEO and digital ads. It's hosted by me Kerry Guard, CEO and co-founder of kg marketing. And if you want to be a guest if you're a marketer in b2b and cyber, I'd love to have you on Let's Hang Out. Let's chat. Thank you all so much. Have a great day. Bye