Don Jeter is the CMO at Torq, a series D enterprise cybersecurity company (valued at $1.2B) that’s notorious for its “out there” brand, unusual visual identity, and bold marketing stunts.
Their stunts include a 40-foot inflatable skeleton with pterodactyls firing lasers and a monster truck parked at their conference booth, a tattoo bus at RSA (99 ACTUAL tattoos done), CISO karaoke, hiring former pro-wrestling analyst Joel Gertner to name Torq the winner of the “Gertner Mystical Quartile”, Torq-branded urinal liners that their CRO carries in his pocket and deploys at will, and much more.
Don has spent 13 years in cybersecurity marketing, at Symantec, Veritas Technologies and Pax8, where he went from Sr. Director of Marketing to SVP Global Marketing, helping the company grow from $5m to $1B in ARR, before joining Torq in 2023.
Listen on: YouTube, Apple Podcast & Spotify
We discuss:
How Don got his CEO to sign off on Torq’s crazy, MASSIVE rebrand (skeletons, monster trucks and all)
What it means to stop marketing, and start world-building
The Liquid Death thesis
What B2B marketers should learn from A24 (the movie studio behind Marty Supreme & Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Don’s test for good marketing: will this get our salespeople excited?
How he scaled field marketing from 3 → 90 → 150 → 400 events per year, and why Don is betting so heavily on in-person
Why brand and demand are the same motion
Where Don draws the line on AI use for his marketing team
What he’d do in his first 30 days as a new CMO
If Don could only watch one movie for the rest of his life, and he had to rewatch it anytime he wanted to watch a movie, which one it would be (he’s really into movies)
And, actually, more
Connect with Don:
Don’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goodmarketing/
Torq: https://torq.io/
Connect with Finn:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/
Project 33 - LinkedIn Agency for CEOs: https://www.project33.io/
Mentioned in the episode:
Liquid Death: https://liquiddeath.com/
Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/
Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act”: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717356/the-creative-act-by-rick-rubin/
