Impactful Branding To Create Value Beyond The Brand

Intro

Hello, I'm Kerry guard and Welcome to Tea Time and tech marketing leaders.

Welcome back to the show. If you listened to my episode last week with Dave Corlette, you may have noticed that I, I did a little FYI for y'all where we got about five episodes left here before we kick it over to our live shows exclusively.

So we go live download LinkedIn on a regular basis. And, and then those shows will get wrapped into audio files across our normal standard of Spotify, Apple pocket, so on and so forth, we are also going to be on YouTube coming soon. So very excited for that. So just a little, your great things are gonna be a little different around here at tea time. And I want to give you a little heads up.

The beauty of being live, is that y'all get to join in. So if you, if you can make it while we're recording, then then you get to ask questions and get them answered in real time. Super cool.

In this episode. I talked to oh my gosh, she was so wonderful. It was a while ago. So thank you. Thank you Revital Libfrand for hanging in there with me.

So Revital Libfrand join me a few had been a few months ago, I got connected with her through her colleague Alon. We just got chatting over LinkedIn. And I invited him on the podcast, he was like, actually, you know what, you really need to speak to her at all she's gonna be she's gonna be the best for this and all was she ever. So thank you so much for Alon for the connection. And for introducing me.

I am so grateful for this conversation in this conversation where Revital  and I unpack what it means to bring stories to life for your brand, in a way that is not for your brand. It's not about your brand.

It's about the impact you're trying to make on your community and your customers in the long run, and she tells these amazing, beautiful stories and gives these examples that are just Yes, like this is what brand is all about. And it's so good.

We talked about the balance between brand and lead gen and demand gen and lead capture and how she's approaching that in using these stories.

It's just a gorgeous, gorgeous conversation. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful little bit about Revital, so you know who you're hanging out with.

Revital is a business executive with strong marketing, product sales and operations orientation. With over 20 plus years of experience in marketing, business development, sales and management. She leverages her experience her business understanding to help software businesses grow. She's currently at a cybersecurity company, Odix. That's how we got connected. You could contact her. If you're looking for a person with perfect combination of strategy, hands on capability and can do attitude. Her email is in the show notes. What an amazing conversation. I can't wait for you to take a listen. So let's get to it.

Here's my conversation with Revital Libfrand.

Transcript

Kerry Guard: Hello, Revital, thank you for joining me on Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders.

Revital Libfrand: Hello, Kerry. Thanks for having me.

Kerry Guard: I'm so excited to have you and I can't wait to have this conversation. It's one I haven't really dug into with people. So I'm very excited to bring your point of view to our listeners before we get there. Tell us your story. What do you do and how did you get there?

Revital Libfrand: Well, I done Odix cybersecurity company about four years ago as the Head of Product Marketing. I think it was actually the first person, that whole kind of marketing/ product position in the company at that time. So I had the opportunity and the challenge to build the marketing from ground up. Odix is, is actually the first cybersecurity for me. But I've been in the tech scene for more than 25 years, I served in several positions in leading sales, business development. And then in the later stage, I shifted more to product marketing and manage analytics teams. I work with companies in different sectors like telecommunication, mobile apps, bi, and I think I experienced all kinds of products from traditional on prem to, of course, cloud based solution and pure SAS. In my background, I have a BA in economics, and I completed my MBA in business administration with a major in marketing. And I know how do I get my my first job in sales? Was that actually a coincidence, but I believe that since then, I kind of understand that I know how to tell a story, I know how how to position a product in, in the way that that customer or partner that I engage with, will understand that this is exactly what they need to comply with their challenger need. So I would say that, I don't know pitching, positioning and telling a story was always there for me. But I believe that I got improved during the years and, and make it a passion for me. So that's me. That is,

Kerry Guard: ah, I have a couple of follow up questions. One is the first one is, how was the shift into cyber attacks was your first cybersecurity company, you came from a very eclectic background in tech. But besides that cyber field different? Or did you just feel like another industry that you, you know, could figure out very quickly? Or was it totally different and completely new learning? World?

Revital Libfrand: It's, I think it's a mixture, because there are definitely things that I never thought about them. Even if I'm in the tech industry for quite a while. I think I knew the buzzword of antivirus and firewall without really understanding what exactly they do. I mean, maybe the antivirus, yes, but I didn't really understand how it works and so on. And I think this is something that, for me, the person was very interesting, not as a marketing leader, but but as a person to understand it really, cybersecurity and cyber education touches everyone. And just, I think it was earlier this week, North Dakota declared that they are going to enforce cyber education starting from I don't remember if it's from kindergarten, but definitely from in all grades at school, the because it's part of their law. I mean, they enforce schools to have such education. And I think it's so important, really, I mean, I'm sure that many other countries and states will will follow them. Because, you know, in the same way that you teach a kid how to be careful in the road, you need to teach him how to be safe in this virtual world. It touches everyone.

Kerry Guard: It does, it does. Even with my kids, they have laptops now and we're trying to figure out, they're so mature for their age. And so the age limiting that is in the content that they're restricted to for their for their age cap is almost too young for them. And so we push the age limit up, but we did it with this educational piece of let's talk about what we're doing here, and how this can affect you what you need to be careful of what you look for. And every decision we make seems to have this caveat of the impact that the internet can make on them. Especially when we start losing a bit of that control of what they can see all the time. It's scary.

Revital Libfrand: It is. Well I remembered this kid you know, my parents used to tell me don't don't talk to stranger Of course, don't go to places but but they raised the risk that we have as kids in the world. And we need to do the same also in the virtual world. And hacking and cybersecurity is definitely part of it.

Kerry Guard: Absolutely, absolutely. I'm interested to see how North Dakota, the law it unfolds and how they're going to integrate it, because it's gotta be putting a lot. It's a lot on teachers now, right? So it's going to be interesting to see teachers who already have so much to do and how they're going to layer in this, it's going to be, it's going to be interesting to see how they, how they approach it. As my last question for you in terms of your story, and you said, you sort of it sounds like you were very deliberate and go to school for marketing. But then your first job was sort of a happenstance, how did you know that you wanted to go into marketing.

Revital Libfrand: Um, you know, when, when I was working, I was working for many years for sales and business development. So at that time, in b2b marketing was kind of the assisting force for for the sales or sales were the kings. And I think that I think it is shifting now for b2b businesses. So the part of the marketing is way more impactful. And there is more. Because the b2b market is kind of shifting from the relationship, sort of sales process to like more product driving sales process. And this has really impact the role of the marketing, and I think is part of the evolution of myself as a person and the sales processes and the products that are shifting to the product. So I guess it was for me like a natural thing to do. Because in any case, when when you're working in sales, and I'm talking about enterprise sales that are, although I started with deals that the average deal, revenue was, I don't know, few 1000s of dollar, but it shifted to few dozens of 1000s of dollar and at the end of my career, which was millions of dollars or millions of euros. So you kind of have an evolution yourself, and you know how to position stuff. And you know, that even if you got the deck from your marketing manager. In reality, you need to kind of articulate the message in a more accurate way, because you know, that the specific customer that you're planning to meet, wants to hear something a little bit different from you. So you need to make those adjustments. So it was I didn't really think about it, but it just happened and it was shifted. So I love this direction.

Kerry Guard: Yeah, it seems to be like when I walked into marketing, I didn't even know I didn't really understand what all the possibilities and jobs could be in marketing. I started as a media planner, and my first my very first interview, the person I was sitting across from asked me Do you know what media planning it was like? Tell me six, I have no idea. I mean, it's it for so many of us. It's not something we necessarily go after or even if we do in your case, where you sort of went to school for marketing you never really sure what your journey is going to be. And so thank you for for sharing your story. Well, actually the

Revital Libfrand: MBA I did it for myself as a as a gift when I for my 40 years old birthday, it was a gift for myself. 

Kerry Guard: What a gift. I mean, that's, that's like I mean, I'm not forever learner too. So for me that seems like a wonderful gift. But for some of our folks who might be like wait, we went back to school for fun? Um, yes.

Revital Libfrand: It was actually it was because you know, when you when you study for your BA you're kind of young and it's like you do it because you have to do it but in the MBA it's different you do it because you want to do it which is a completely different learning experience.

Kerry Guard: Do you feel like because you were in the mindset of not feeling like you had to but because you want to do it. You want both both of these are possibly all these things. Either you picked up a bit faster because you've been in the market and or you figured out what like did you take it all in and you just absorbed it and enjoyed it or did you say, Oh, this is really applicable I get to apply this like right now, how was sort of that journey for you and like that, the the have to versus the I get to.

Revital Libfrand: Know the have to I mean that, you know, when you're young, you kind of do stuff. Not necessarily because you thought about it too much. But you know, you have to study BA because that's what your parents told you to do so or that's what you were educated for, and so on. But in the MBA, it was different. Because, first of all, I felt I felt a need to do something for myself. And it's not that I really needed it for the career because, you know, my career was was fine. I was working in diverse positions and so on, it's not something that I needed, in order to progress myself or to improve myself at work, in terms of getting another job or something like that. It was really for me, and I really, really enjoyed it. It was fun. And you know, to be a student in when you almost 40 It's fun.

Kerry Guard: That's amazing. That's amazing. I love that. Thank you so much for Chuck, for sharing. In terms of right now, and at ODIX and your team which got going on, what's the challenge that you're all that either you personally are facing in your role, or you as a team are facing what's keeping you up at night? What's hard.

Revital Libfrand: In one word, budget. Yeah, I think that this is really the most challenging thing for us, because our team is is very, very small. There are two people in my team. And in addition, we from time to time, we we we get help also from freelancing outsource, but for a specific task that we do. But the budget is a big is a big issue. And when you work with a small company that the budget is very, very limited. A challenge because because the challenge period, you need to be very creative in order not to spend or invest money almost at all, but try to figure out how to how to do creative stuff. And also, when you work in an ecosystem, for example, like with Microsoft or stuff like that, then these companies, sometimes they have some budgets for marketing campaigns and stuff like that, and you need to know how to utilize them with with partners. So this is also a channel that I'm trying to very much use in order to increase the capabilities that we that will allow us to do some more marketing activities. So this is also an area but to summarize it money.

Kerry Guard: Yes, especially in today's climate, I feel like everybody's being asked to do more with with either the same or less. I think this is gonna lend really nicely into our conversation. But before I get there, given the size of your team and their budget constraints, partners, this sounds like something you're certainly focusing on. Where else I know that there's a ton of startups out there and for the companies, especially now that all these layoffs, the books about one of the silver linings and layoffs is that people go and start their own companies. And so there's gonna be a huge a huge boom for for tech startups again, which is gonna be really fun to watch. But in those early stages, when you are under those constraints, where do you in your experience? Where have you focused to say, okay, here are the constraints we have with our budget, here's how we have used our money wisely. Where else other than partner Have you said let's start here?

Revital Libfrand: It's well, so I mentioned I mentioned the partners, but it's something that needs to be well defined with the company strategy meeting with the CEO of the company, in order to prioritize the to prioritize the tasks that needs to be done, because if the task is to bring short terms revenue, then you very much need to focus on leads. Well, you need to bring leads anyway along the way. But But It's really a matter of where do you invest more energy and resources. The other path, if the company is in the process of raising money, then you need to be a little bit more on the PR side. And, and this is very hard to do with with, with no budget. But, but it is something that that can be done in a way. If you engage, for example, with with thought leader, and do some, like, you know, out of the box complaints with them, it is possible to create a little bit of buzz without really investing the needed resources in PR. So I think it's really about prioritizing the goals. And that's where I will put, you know, the focus and the money.

Kerry Guard: Yes, I think it's such always an important part to come back to what the goal is because the goal will define the strategy for sure. And these are great examples. So they know most startups are in either they need revenue, or they need funding, they will need money to keep our companies going and to help facilitate our missions. So yes to that, let's talk about this. This budget challenge definitely lends into a interesting conversation we had in our prep call around brand awareness. This feels very counterintuitive, that you'd have a limited budget, but you'd be focused on brand, and maybe not to your point like, you know, if if trying to find funding is the mission, and more PR focused energy needs to happen, then maybe brand doesn't make sense. But for you, and for ODIX. And given your challenges. Why is brands something you feel is important to do right now.

Revital Libfrand: Brand is is important, I think all the time, and especially when you're working in a competitive environment, with so many cybersecurity companies, you know, and normally, there are areas that there is like a one or two that are dominant in the field, and the rest are very, very small. So you need to, to make your name and brand be to be seen, actually, in a way. And we were trying to do several stuff in order to make our brand seen. So at least. And one thing that I can say, and I'm and I'm proud of it, that in our on prem solutions, when I joined the company, there was almost zero awareness for the ODIX brand. But now we're in the on prem solutions that we have, I think that there is no tender or RFP that that Audix is not compared to one of the top competitor in the field, which is the company which is I don't know, 20 times bigger than us and has way more revenues, and they just raised like over $100 million, and so on. So these are the giants that we need to face with and we're trying to do it in, in a creative manner. I'll give you a few examples. We, we decided to be proactive in the in cyber Awareness Month and the Israeli cyber authority requested companies that want to, you know, contribute content. And that's where we came with the lady hacker diary. Originally it was written in Hebrew, but then when translated into English, it was like It looks like a comics book. Each chapter basically describe the challenges that allows the hacker is trying to plan then her next hacking, and then what what went wrong. And in the, in the part of what what went wrong. It was basically the explanation what you need to do in order to protect yourself against phishing against social engineering and all kinds of cyber attacks are cyber vectors. And it was very nice, fun piece because it looks like comics. And it was great. And this is something that from our perspective, required. Of course some work of copyright  from our end. But we did it. And thanks to our graphic designer, and it was really, really nice. And we still have it in our website. Willing to throw example is the you know, you always try to leverage special holidays or stuff like that in order to do something a little bit different. So, at the end of 2022, we decided that for 2023, we will engage with 23 security leaders and get or IT leaders and get from them, tips for how to secure their company. We ran this campaign in the social for during December, January, each one of them got like a banner, it was very colorful with details. And at the end, we wrapped everything together into a gift. And it was also summarized as a blog in our website. And so we kind of took these tips and created a lot of context content around it. And I can tell you that due to the fact that we engaged with these people, of course, they're sharing because they're proud that they are part of something. And the the the impressions that we got, and the exposure to our brand is was much higher than just a regular post that you normally do. Another example was for the International Women's Day, we decided this year that we would like to kind of salute to the woman's in the Ukraine who suffered in the last year and still suffering, unfortunately, from the war. So we engaged with several woman that that are working and you know how to continue their career. And with the slogan, yes, they have something to say. And also, this is something that they got a lot of exposure. And actually, the video just made me cry, it was very, very emotional. And these are the things that are that I'm not trying to sell all these but I'm trying to bring people to look at interesting content, and then see that it was like powered by Odix or done biotics, so at least they're becoming familiar with the brand. And next time when they will see something that will be more like the professional level, or more on the product level, it might be easier to communicate with us. So these are these are examples.

Kerry Guard: They're amazing examples, the top two are really interesting in the sense that while their brand awareness, they're very they're still very industry, like, they still feel very targeted. It's not it doesn't feel very blankets, it's very targeted around who would be interested in this content. And who would watch it, which ultimately would be your primary audience. Of course, it'll go outside of that too. But at the end of the day, it's about who you want to be working with. So I think there's a lovely tie there. The third one is less about that. And I think by design, it was very, um, you know, on self fulfilling, but before, a question I have about all of these, especially with your limited budget is the first one makes sense. You have copywriters, and you have if you're a copywriter, potentially and a graphic designer, potentially maybe you freelance this maybe you have this in house, but definitely not a big team, like you mentioned. So on on very small resources. This seems very possible. The question I have around it is how did you get the lady hacker diary out into the world? Was it just some social posts? Was it did you put any pain behind it? What was sort of the strategy of, you know, this idea that if you build it, they will come? I think is long gone? So how did you get out into the world to say that you have this thing? And to those who might find it useful?

Revital Libfrand: Well, first of all, it was co branded. I mean, the Hebrew version one was co branded with the Israeli cyber authority. So they published it at first. And it was more targeted for consumers Not at all b2b. Okay. So you as an individual that doesn't understand anything in cybersecurity. I mean, you heard about something in the news. You know what, you know, you know that there are hackers, but you don't really understand their practice and I'll give you just as soon Simple example of understanding that you need to see the the exact address of a sender when you get an email from an unknown person, or even if you get something which is a bit suspicious from Microsoft support, asking to click on this in order to reset your password or something like that. And this has been something that we need to bring the awareness to increase the awareness to understand that it was actually a fake address. And Microsoft is not coming from the real Microsoft, but Microsoft something with a different, I don't know, suffix or something like that. So the first campaign was distributed by the Israeli cyber authority, it was part of the cyber Awareness Month. So we just, we just found the opportunity to, to bring them the right content, and they liked it. So they published it. Okay, so it's a channel that, as I said, we're trying to find channels that we can do stuff without paying out of the pocket money. And this was one of the opportunities later on what we did was translated into English. And then we did, we published it in social and nothing paid not as paid content, but just organic. And in addition, we offer to any partner that would like to co branded with us, we just simply add their logo and provide it to them. So they can distribute it to their customers is something which is fun. So this is also something that you can do very, very easy. Just take the content, you have your logo, put your partner logo, and here you go, you give the you gave them a gift to their customers. And that's the way we did it.

Kerry Guard: So smart, I love how you are really leading into community too. Right? So to work with the cyber authority, and to say, here's something we're gifting to you, and also to your users in this educational piece. That's also really fun, especially when we're talking about consumers. So how creative have you to to give back to your community in a way to get that visibility. And to show that you're, you're more than just a product, like just so cool. So cool. It sounds like he did something similar for the 23 security leaders, right? Like you partnered with these individuals who have I imagine some clout and following within their networks to say let's put a piece of content together. For you. Now, this is a bit both of these, this one and the next one for International Women's Day sounds a little bit more resource intensive, because you're talking about video. So talk me through how you approach being able to do video for both of these given Oh, you have available,

Revital Libfrand: The 23 papers for a safe 2023 was not in a video we approached these leaders, mainly via LinkedIn. And, and asked them if they agree to take part of it. And we said what we need from you is your photo and the you know, like a teeth. And we told them if you want we can even suggest few tips. And so just for you to see. So that's what we did. And of course you need to approach more than 23 in order to get the 23 so but the people like it when when you ask them such a thing because they don't need to invest much okay in that and and then our graphical graphic designer just put the tape in, in a nice banner. That was in divert in many colors. We did it very, very colorful. So each Banner had its own dominant color with the photo and the quote. So it required from us resources in terms of the graphic design, but we took a template so we I always tell the team let's go for a template, it makes it much more easier, easier to you know, to adjust and you just need to change the color so and it looks brand new, and that's the way it works. So this was less time consuming that sense with the video for the International woman day. We have Alon in my team, and that he actually studied cinema studies in New York. Know, he loves videos, he loves filming. And it was really his project we took, I think we took shot of six or eight women I'm not I don't remember the moment. And yeah, it took like a couple of days to edit everything and make it a nice video. But I think I'm lucky that they have these skills in house with a long that loves to do videos. And that's the reason we are able to do everything in house. So the team includes graphic designer, which this is something that I think is, is very, very helpful. I used to work with outsourced graphic designer, but it's it's kind of hard, especially if you want to generate content, and marketing collateral as many, many stuff in an ongoing manner. When you work with outsourcing. Either you you know, you agree with them that they will be they will dedicate I know a day or two in a week just for you. So you will be able to plan it properly. If you don't meet somebody that is it full time. So this is something that, for me is very, very important to have this capability kind of in house. And in the long that has also multiple capabilities including video and copywriting a lot of them I mean, in terms of product marketing, most of the brochures and product sheets and stuff like that I wrote them myself. Some of the blog, a lot is doing part. So

Kerry Guard: it sounds like you're all very hands on which is very cool. And

Revital Libfrand: start to be very hands. very hands on.

Kerry Guard: Yes, I think that makes a lot sense. I love where you're putting your energy, it sounds very visual visual seems very important to you. Is that because, you know, that's work. Is that because you feel like that's where the industry is gone? Or is that just something that you really gravitate towards yourself in terms of wanting things to be very visual versus a text heavy?

Revital Libfrand: Well, first of all, you're right, the digital is important and visuals are very, very important. It it's very catchy and gets the attention of, of the readers that, you know, they're overwhelmed with with a lot of content. And I always tell the team that, you know, when you write a blog, the most important thing is the title and the subtitle. The rest is, you know, I mean it's it's it's important, but that's as important as the title and the subtitles. And yeah, that's that's the, that's where the focus is. So

Kerry Guard: The images on your website, I'm just perusing Knox, I can't help myself erase your head over to the Odix website, by the way, in terms of just being a great example of everything that Rivital is talking about. It is very visual. And I think they find it very difficult in the digital age when you're selling something that's very technical behind the scenes, it's very tough to make to bring that to life without images, you know, images that are stuck, right of people sitting around computers and pointing at things and you've managed to do it so is that because you're a graphic designer? Like where does the inspiration come into with the graphics on your website? And how have you been able to is this all thanks to your graphic designer is this collaboration did you bring outside help in like this is a very graphic driven visual website you have and a lot of

Revital Libfrand: I think it's a lot of teamwork. And whenever we plan every every Sunday because I work on Sunday here in Israel, then we have a meeting of the team and we discuss about visual stuff that we want to have. And we kind of a team that that has a lot of ideas and and that's where we how we grasps the you know the ideas into a visual Seeing that the graphic designer know how to how to place it. Of course it sometimes there are things that goes with a lot of back and forwards, but but I really, really like the results that we have. What I wanted to add is that digital is very important. I think that talking about the sales processes for b2b obviously, I think that people are getting back into conferences. And, you know, I think three years of COVID, the social distance was enough for most of the people and conferences are back. Definitely, if I would have more budget, we would invest more on that, because I think it is important, and the personal engagement is important for the, for the business. But with digital, you can do a lot of virtual noise. So in less budget, so

Kerry Guard: I would say what you're doing is not noise at all, I It feels very intentional, which I think is what's so beautiful about it. I do want to ask in terms of what we had our conversation in the prep call, one of the things that we mentioned that we came up with is you need to do both, right? Like we've been very heavy in the brand conversation, that doesn't mean to my understanding, you're not doing lead generation, how do you balance the two? Given? Yeah, how are you balancing the two brands always feels like something you should do later when you have more budget and you can go bigger, and right now start with liens and generate the, you know, be very transactional, a bit more transactional in that earlier stage, you've taken a different approach. And I'm just wondering how you're able to balance both being such an early stage startup.

Revital Libfrand: Simply when you plan the task of the people in the team, then you need to allocate the time for managing or creating the Legion in lead generation, then I invested, for example, more on search campaigns in Google, this is something that they did put but that the time investing monthly budget for it, not huge, but it's it is mandatory to put some money in search campaigns. And, for example, in display campaigns I, in the last month, I'm not investing money there because of budget limitations. And this is something that for display campaigns, it's more for brand awareness and not for leads. So if you want to focus on lead, then you need to put some more money in certain campaigns. And this is what I do. And in terms of balance, so I guess that understand that you need to do, you need to do a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And that's what creates the balance. And as long as it's part of the weekly task that you need to do. That's what we do.

Kerry Guard: It sounds like you've created some systems and processes in terms of can you mentioned tasks. So I imagine in terms of your resources, but I love what you're saying is, you know, a lot of times when we talk about resources, we talk about time and money, right. And most people put a lot of emphasis on the money side of where their money goes. And you mentioned that a little bit in terms of paid search. But what were you really talking and what's interesting to me and is the timepiece, that you're managing your team's time as a resource in a way that allows you to make this balance sort of happen of yes, we it's so what's the split? Is it 5050? Is it more time to lead gen and then you get to do some of these fun projects when they come up? Is it you know, how do you sort of manage that that time every week? What's what's sort of the split? You

Revital Libfrand: Think it depends on the week? Totally fair? Yeah, it depends on the week. There are ways that we will focus more on lead gen, especially if we want to target a certain industry, for example. Like, I think it was like two years ago, there was a period, there were few months in the US with tons of hacking on municipalities ransomware attacks, like in two months, I don't remember how many but there were a lot of cases, municipalities so at that time, we said okay, that's what we are focusing in next month, to create campaigns around municipalities and of course included the purpose of this campaign was Definitely lead generation for the sales in the US to convert to, you know, to actual revenues. And it was pretty successful we gained several customers from municipality one of them was hacked, of course. And that time, actually, that time when we had the team was a was bigger in ODIX for for the marketing because they had another person who was dedicated just for content and PR. So we created a lot of content in external media and not just in our website, but also with some local portals that are dedicating their their content to the municipality and governmental places. So we we invested also in that and it was pretty good in terms of regeneration. So it really depends on the week.

Kerry Guard: Yeah, I think that makes sense. I know how you're so in tune to the news, you talked about North Dakota, you talked about those municipalities, it sounds like you're very connected to what's going on in the world, and then how you can intentionally and thoughtfully even with the, the each month, you know, International Women's Day to the cyber Awareness Month. I love how connected you are. Through that. Where do you get your news? How do you stay? Because you're not in the US? So how do you stay and you know so much about us, which is amazing. So how for you? How do you stay connected to the news and the live filter through all the noise that isn't relevant? Is it certain, you know, news out loud, you're following? Is it people on certain social media? What's sort of your

Revital Libfrand: First of all, we have Stephen and Mayberry, she's our VP North America. She's, she's in the cybersecurity domain for lots of time. And she's she's very much connected to the scene mainly in the critical infrastructure and oil and gas, and industrial sectors, but also to others. So she's a very good source for me, you know, whenever something happens, she said it right right there, because she knew that she knows that the, we will do something with it. And that's what happens also with the municipality, so once you get, you know, like one case, and then you kind of search for, like additional cases, and you understand that there is some some kind of trend. So, this is one way, when I had the content, writer person in my team, so definitely, it was his job to follow. In some industries that, you know, each time we said, Okay, this quarter, we're going to focus on this in this industries. So of course, his job is part of his job was to kind of follow the industry trends in the sector trends and to understand what's going on there. And to see what kind of resources we can approach or, you know, external side and see how we can contribute content, it was something that we did before, more like to contribute professional articles about cybersecurity about specific segments. But now, as I have less resources, it's something that we do a little bit less this is, for example, something that is part of how to balance between the resources that you have and the need of the company to to prioritize the task and according to that, that's what we do.

Kerry Guard: That makes so much sense. I I just love how you're able to find these opportunities. I think one of the challenges people tend to find these opportunities happening like you know, with the missa palette is getting hacked and then jumping on that in a way that feels very fear based. So what was your messaging in that moment? Because I feel like that some people will see that as opportunistic and database of everything I know of your brand. I don't think you took that approach. So what was it for you of how you're able to balance that, hey, we wouldn't be here to help you. You need this without making them feel like if they don't have it, then they're gonna get hacked. Again, shame on you sort of messaging 

Revital Libfrand: Well, I must say that, you know, when it comes to cybersecurity, it's a little bit like insurance approach. You know, you should buy the insurance because you don't want to you know, the Why if your house will be hacked, what if the if a thief is going to come here and so on. So there is a lot of frightening in, in our in cybersecurity for sure. Because nobody wants to be hacked, nobody wants to that his organization will get a ransomware attack or something like that. I think. Yeah. So the messaging was definitely you know, there are hearing about all those and use around, do are you really protected, but we were coming more with the approach that that you can prevent the next cyber attack. So the message was how to prevent the next cyber attack because the technology that that Alex is focused in, is to prevent to prevent attacks that are more like fire based attacks. But that's the message how to prevent the next attack.

Kerry Guard: That feels very more proactive. I think you're you're an intern Sosa's, too, and I love how you refer to them, because it is this lovely balancing act. That's what needs to happen have set yourself protected in a proactive way. And we're here to help. And so yes, I, I love a variety of the commercial. We had a commercial here. Many years ago, I don't know if it's still running where GEICO hat was a GEICO, they had a guy called mayhem. And he would just be like, doing all sorts of things that you really don't want people to do to your home. And so but they made it hilarious, the same time. And so again, it was a little bit fear based, but it was also really funny. And I think they did a really nice job of balancing that. And that's sort of what's coming to mind for me, of how you sort of balance that preventative educational piece that you do so nicely through most of your mess, you know, through all your messaging that we've talked about. My last question to you on this Revital is coming back to brand and talking about lead gen and the balancing act of that. Have you seen it sounds like your your brand campaigns are more sporadic? Based on what's happening, whether that's a month you want to focus on or something that happens in the industry? Is that the case? Is brand always on for you? Or is it more sporadic based off of the campaign's you have, that you're focusing on?

Revital Libfrand: I think now is a little bit more, I would say. It's not sporadic. It's It's sporadic, when when there are opportunities that we need to think that we can leverage them in investing, not a lot of resources. And in terms of planning. Yeah, I mean, we know when international data is going to come. And we know that there is the fear and stuff like that. So we do plan according to them and try to do it in a more engaging way. And so on. So to increase the brand awareness, I think the brand awareness is always there. And in terms of sporadic things, and we're trying to leverage, like, leverage the momentum for stuff that are popping up.

Kerry Guard: Yeah, because my question about this, and what I'm curious about, and maybe, you know, we follow up and hang out and talk more about because I can't help myself, is what impact you see, when you put something brand more brand awareness out into the world what impact you see on your lead gen. And I don't know if there's an easy way to correlate that, whether it's just impression boost from SEO, or maybe all of a sudden have more leads, I don't know how you, you know how you specifically are quantifying that. But I just wanted to be curious around the all these amazing campaigns and beyond the impression like what's been the business impact for you, and we've been able to measure that.

Revital Libfrand: So purely awareness stuff, we do see the traffic and the engagement around this particular campaigns. And definitely you need you see a dramatic increase in the impressions and the engagement and so on with the Legion. So there are complaints per Legion. And when I mentioned the for example, the municipality so I cannot really measure the number of readers that read our external article, but I do see if there are referrals from this external article that was published about the municipality that came to our website. This is something that we can measure. But But I don't think it's really accurate because I think that there, you know, there are many stuff that you do in a campaign and although that, you know, basically or theoretically You can measure every lead that arrived. But I think that it's a combination of everything that really boosted decreases and impact at the end of the day, the total number of leads that you will get. So every every little base has its contribution. I mean, you do the external media publication you do post in social you. You target specific people in the industry with an email campaign, you do all that and you will reach the goal. This is my

Kerry Guard: Yes, I mean, I think that's what's so hard about brand is it's, but people don't do it, because they don't feel like it's quantifiable. But to your point that it all contributes. It all continues. That's all this was amazing. I'm so grateful for this conversation. Last question for you around because you're more than a marketer. And it's so nice to get to know people outside of the industry. So I have one question for you in regards to I have three normally asked them and ask one. I'm trying to think about which one fits you I'm gonna go with travel. Now that don't you mentioned the world opening up again, you mentioned conference, it's becoming a thing again, for you personally. Are you traveling more? Are you? Do you have some plans of where you're headed, or maybe you've traveled recently to somewhere where you that's been on your bucket list, but

Revital Libfrand: First of all, I would say that I prefer to travel for, for leisure and not for business. This is this is something that I prefer, especially because I was traveling a lot as a sales director. In the past when I was working in sales and business development, let's say for 12 years, I was always I was always carrying a suitcase, something like that. Oh my god, it wasn't easy. So thanks, God for COVID. And that gave us a little bit of balance. And we understand that there are many things that we can do remotely. And you know, with the technology that facilitates that. So I think it's way more easy. And to be honest. Of course, that was cool. We'll have more conferences that will be part of I'll definitely travel. Although I prefer to travel, as I said for just for fun and not for for work, but it's something that is part of part of the job, and we need to do that as well.

Kerry Guard: Do you have any interesting people? Do you have any personal travel plans? Are you headed anywhere soon for fun?

Revital Libfrand: For fun? Yeah. So as I told you, like two weeks ago, I was I was with my daughter for a weekend in Budapest. And actually, in the at the end of next week, I'm traveling to off roading. off roading in Turkey. Oh, yeah. So there for us. So it's a good period to travel. But this is without the kids. It's with my spouse.

Kerry Guard: Oh, there you go. Yes, that sounds amazing, or so I hope you have the best time. Thank you again for joining me, it was so lovely to have you and I'm so grateful for this conversation.

Revital Libfrand: Thank you very much, Kerry.

Outro

Kerry Guard: That was my conversation with Revital Libfrand. And if you'd like to learn more, and see the stories in action, please head over to her LinkedIn. She has tagged all of her episodes and you'll be able to watch them one after the other in terms of the campaigns, the brand campaigns that she's been able to build for ODIX.

They're so good. They're so they're so good. The creativity, the the human ness of it all. Yes, yes to all the thank you so much Revital for sharing. I'm so grateful. So grateful. Be sure to connect.

We got about four more episodes here and then we're gonna head into our Live series. I'm excited to see you over there.

But I'm always so grateful you're hanging out with me here so thank you for listening.