Marketing to people who think marketing is beneath them

10:10 am
-
10:20 am
CT

Security practitioners don't trust marketing. So what do you do? You stop doing marketing the way everyone else does it.

Four things that actually work:

Community over content. Builders are starved to connect, learn, and trade war stories. Give them a space to do that and you don't need a nurture sequence.

Brand as a bridge. Know your audience. When your buyer demographic skews heavily male, lean into what resonates with them culturally: gaming, sci-fi, cyberpunk aesthetics. Brand becomes a shared language for storytelling and connection, not just a logo exercise.

Put your researchers in front of the camera. The people doing the hard work are your most credible voice. Coach them to get to the point, then get them in front of press and on stage.

Treat journalists and influencers like VIPs. First-class outreach for news drops, not a press release blast. The difference shows.

Session Agenda

  • 1. How to build community that generates pipeline without traditional demand gen
  • 2. How to use brand aesthetics as a credibility bridge with technical audiences
  • 3. A framework for coaching researchers to become effective media voices
  • 4. How to structure journalist and influencer outreach that actually gets coverage

Speakers

Amy Heng

Head of Marketing

Straiker

Amy Heng

Head of Marketing

Straiker

First time head of marketing during the agentic world

Amy Heng is Head of Marketing at Straiker. Her career spans cloud security, security operations, and zero trust at companies like Palo Alto Networks, Splunk, and Zscaler, across product, partner, and growth marketing. She now leads marketing at the edge of agentic security.