Inside Marketing: CloudLock

[tweet_box design=”box_15_at” float=”none” excerpt=”With growth comes a different spectrum of tools – @tmaasted, Senior #Marketing Manager @cloudlock via @GoWhatArmy” author=”Tiffany Aasted | Senior Marketing Manager, CloudLock” pic_url=”http://whatarmy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Screenshot-2016-03-21-16.25.48.png”]“With growth comes a different spectrum of tools, but you must learn to filter out the noise and stay focused on your objectives.”[/tweet_box]

As an East Coast transplant, Senior Marketing Manager Tiffany Aasted begins her days very early out in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her company, cloud security platform CloudLock, is based in Waltham, MA, in the heart of the Massachusetts tech community. Having joined the company back in 2013 when CloudLock was a much smaller organization, Tiffany’s role has grown right along with it. In this installment of Inside Marketing, she shares her journey from “jack of all trades” to focused corporate marketing strategist.

“It has been an amazing and challenging journey to be a part of a startup that has transitioned to a growth-stage company,” Tiffany said. “As a startup marketer, you focus on utilizing free and low-cost tools to do as much as you can as efficiently as possible. You move at a very rapid pace and, in many cases, you’re able to see immediate impact. With growth comes a larger budget with a much different spectrum of tools, but you must learn to filter out the noise and stay focused on your objectives.”

Trust that starts at the top

CloudLock is all about cybersecurity; they pioneered the cloud access security broker (CASB) space to help companies secure their data in cloud applications. And there have been a lot of “firsts” for them: they were the first organization to deliver security for infrastructure as a service, software as a service and custom-built applications.

But trust doesn’t start or end there for CloudLock; since Tiffany joined the company three years ago, at which time she was employee number 20-something, the team has grown to nearly 150 employees with offices in the U.S., as well as in Europe and Israel. And their company culture fosters innovation and collaboration that starts with the leadership team and permeates throughout the organization.

[tweet_dis excerpt=”Massive growth fuels #marketing strategy – #InsideMarketing w/ @tmaasted @cloudlock by @GoWhatArmy”]Massive growth fuels marketing strategy[/tweet_dis]

When Tiffany first joined the company, there was one other full-time employee who assisted with marketing efforts that included blog posts, events, email marketing and the website. They were a lean group working on things that were top priority at any given moment to drive results.

For CloudLock, the inflection point occurred in 2014 when the company received additional funding that helped them grow quickly in all areas of the business. Given their explosive growth in product development, it naturally followed that the company needed a larger staff to support the business.

Fast-forward to 2016 and Tiffany now focuses on managing the corporate marketing functions at CloudLock, collaborating with ten other marketing professionals on specific objectives. In her role, she oversees branding and design, website, PR strategy, and social media. As you can imagine, the company’s growth has propelled their strategic marketing efforts to new heights and Tiffany couldn’t be more thrilled to be part of it.

Behind the marketing scenes at CloudLock

Given that the team works collaboratively toward common marketing goals, tools that foster collaboration, specifically cloud-based tools, are critical for a cloud-first organization like CloudLock. These tools include Google apps for Work and Slack, which has taken a load off of overloaded inboxes and enables quick response. This gives the team more efficiency and immediacy. And with the recent addition of Asana as a project management tool, they have rounded out their toolset for effective collaboration across the globe.

For her corporate marketing initiatives, Tiffany leverages the HootSuite social media scheduling and analytics platform. Rather than accessing multiple social networks, she is able to create efficiencies by scheduling out evergreen content, keeping up with and repurposing industry news, and engaging with followers in real time utilizing a single social media management tool.

Perhaps one of Tiffany’s favorite finds is A/B testing tool Optimizely. This tool makes it much easier to improve your website by testing out different customer experiences, messages and calls to action (CTAs) across web, mobile web, iOS and Android devices.

Getting to ROI

As is the case in many marketing environments, one of the team’s greatest challenges is combining the art and science of marketing by not only planning and executing on great campaigns, but then determining the impact of these efforts. [tweet_dis excerpt=”How do you get to #marketing ROI? @tmaasted explains how @cloudlock does it in #InsideMarketing by @GoWhatArmy”]How do you get to ROI?[/tweet_dis]

Tiffany gets into detail on two key factors:

• What are our key business and marketing objectives here at CloudLock? What should we report back to leadership about our results?
• What do others in our industry find important?

By looking both internally and externally in order to benchmark, the CloudLock marketing team utilizes the tools at their disposal to slice and dice the analytics to get to the heart of marketing results. It’s not necessarily an easy process, but it is critical for driving more effective strategy.

And filtering out the noise is another key factor. Pinpointing those specific actions that make a difference is hard, especially when buyers conduct most of their research online prior to reaching out to companies these days. So, the team utilizes key marketing integrations to assist them with those details … more on those integrations below.

Website as evolutionary process

As part of her corporate marketing role, Tiffany is CloudLock’s webmaster, working with her team internally and managing their third-party website development and design agency. The company outsources the overall design of the site, as well as technical updates, utilizing Basecamp for collaboration and efficiency. And, while the agency assists with larger projects, Tiffany manages the day-to-day, often designing and laying out new pages to highlight content and CTAs, ensuring graphics are in line with brand aesthetics, and making sure that SEO is included. Together, they bring the CloudLock website to life and ensure its constant evolution.

This evolution is due in part to Tiffany’s ongoing efforts to keep up with the latest innovations in web design and development. She finds a great deal of inspiration by looking at websites like Domo and OneLogin. With crisp, fresh designs and great layouts, both of these companies stay true to their brand while bringing amazing user experiences to their audiences. And, by keeping up with content and newsletters from brands like HubSpot, AlienVault and WhatArmy, she stays ahead of the marketing curve.

On the technical side, CloudLock uses a common Content Management System along with plugins for SEO. They have integrated their website with their marketing automation platform, Marketo, and Google Analytics. This enables them to pass data from landing page forms into their CRM, providing key marketing intelligence to their sales team.

Of all the beneficial changes they have made to their site during the past few years, Tiffany tells us that the Resources section has changed dramatically to include featured assets and an extensive library that can be filtered by category. They offer a blend of both free and gated content, and have really moved forward with thought leadership around internally curated security intelligence and data points that are so critical in their industry.

So what can other marketers take away from Tiffany’s experiences?

Effective marketing comes from looking inward and outward. By truly understanding your company’s objectives, mapping your efforts to those objectives and then benchmarking against other great companies, marketers can get to an effective strategy. And never stop your quest to validate ROI in new and better ways.

[tweet_box design=”box_08″ excerpt=”Effective #marketing comes from looking inward and outward. – @tmaasted of @cloudlock by @GoWhatArmy #InsideMarketing” float=”none”]Effective marketing comes from looking inward and outward.[/tweet_box]