Social Media is all the buzz. But how does this translate to real-world action and ROI in the B2B technology world? In a new series from CreateYourNextCustomer.com, dubbed Social Media at Work, we explore just that via interviews and advice from leading social media marketers.
Trusted by 100 million users, Sophos provides a full range of endpoint, encryption, email, web and NAC solutions. As a market leader, Sophos has done a brilliant job of complementing proven marketing tactics with an intelligent social media strategy. I had the pleasure of connecting with Rainer Gawlick, CMO, to learn a bit more about how Sophos turns social media activity into revenue and increased customer mindshare. Check out his helpful advice.
Tell us about your background in marketing and how you became a CMO?
Rainer Gawlick, Chief Marketing Officer, Sophos
I started out as a Ph.D. computer scientist, and got very interested in business. As a result I joined McKinsey & Company. I found that marketing is the middle point between business and technical knowledge – which made it perfect for my interests and background. I left McKinsey to become head of PM at Aspen Tech. There I moved up to VP of MKT, and since then have done marketing strategy at various technology companies. What I love about marketing is the variety; you get engaged in everything from sales to branding to engineering etc.
What is your take on social media marketing and where does it fall on your priority list and marketing investment?
Very important because social media is the way in which you can get the opinions of real users/customers. Engage them rather than marketing speak. People use it as a way to make decisions. We believe that we have great products, and we’re confident that this will become apparent when customers talk about it.
Social Media strategies cannot stand alone. What roles does social media play as a complement to your proven marketing tactics?
You can convert social media into pipeline. The key is to provide opportunities for people to raise their hands and express interest in our products. Then you need nurturing programs to move them along in their buying process.
Sophos award-winning blogger, Graham Cluley, is well-renowned in security circles. How have you been able to leverage his blogging activity across various media channels? And any advice for your marketing peers as they look to develop a corporate blogging strategy?
Our corporate blogging strategy relies on interesting individuals like Graham. Basically, give them the space to express opinions and the resources to make sure those opinions are heard with no interference from “corporate”. Get good talent and let it do its thing, it’ll stand out. The content Graham creates we repurpose in other areas, and add programs to his content to allow people to raise their hands.
Sophos has tremendous activity within social networking sites such as Facebook (13,000+ friends) and YouTube (many videos with 10,000+ streams), what do you attribute to this success?
Great content. For example, on Facebook we give great advice on how to use it safely, and people appreciate that. You need to give the consumer marketing material that has enough value that’s worth their time. We offer great content that’s worth their time.
Social network and corporate blogging *activity* is one thing. But as social media marketing evolves, how have you put social media to work as it relates to driving revenue for your organization? Any specific examples?
Example, our anti-rootkit tool got a great rating by this blogger who blogs pretty much on anti-rootkit tools… Which ended up accounting for roughly an extra 150-200 visits a day to the Sophos Anti-Rootkit page. Due to these visits, we had a very high conversion rate of 50% partly due to the favorable review. We generated an extra 500 rootkit conversions per week, purely from this review.
Most enterprises are guarded when it comes to revealing corporate security policies and strategies. As a leading security vendor, do you find challenges in getting the security community to engage in discussion on social media platforms? If yes, how do you overcome these?
Provide valuable stuff that, once prospects consume it, can have the opportunity to raise their hands.
Any other examples on how you’ve put social media to work for your organization – especially focusing on ROI?
Security news is very current-event driven, if you can get an important current event and provide timely content around that, that drives huge spikes in volume to your website. And a lot of that ultimately translates to people engaging with you, giving their names and possibly doing business with you.
What does the future hold for the Sophos social media strategy?
Do more. Do it better.
If you have a Social Media at Work story to tell, please contact me at bfriesen@techweb.com. We’d love to feature you as our next spotlight.
The post Social Media at Work – CMO Spotlight:: Rainer Gawlick, CMO, SOPHOS appeared first on Create Your Next Customer.
