How do you quickly and continually generate relevant, compelling content that cuts through the noise — without creating a management nightmare for a lean marketing team? Gradient Cyber, a cybersecurity products, and services company that visualizes an organization’s cybersecurity health, recently faced this challenge.
Providing Immediate Value
Joining the company as a one-person marketing team, Gradient Cyber’s VP of Marketing Annika Bergum quickly realized she needed outside help for the company’s content-creation tasks. “While we had some ‘superficial’ content, we had very little content that helped people understand Gradient as a company, what we do, and our position on thought leadership topics,” she said.
Annika spent months exploring agency options, actively searching for a freelance writing solution to meet Gradient’s needs without adding additional work and stress to her already full to-do list. After extensively interviewing three content firms, Annika ultimately chose nDash because of the quality of its community. “I don’t have the time to educate a writer on cybersecurity 101,” said Annika. “nDash understood we needed writers who had a functional understanding of the cybersecurity space and introduced us to amazing writers who could jump in and immediately start churning out great content.”
A Scalable, Solution-Focused Approach
As Gradient and nDash have continued to work together, the scope of the engagement has evolved. “We started having nDash create materials explaining who Gradient Cyber is and how we can solve client problems,” Annika explained. “After creating that foundation, we’ve moved on to having nDash freelancers handle virtually all of our content needs. That ranged from case studies and customer testimonials to blog posts, social media captions, and SEO. And as we’re moving into creating more technical content, I know nDash already has a technical writer on deck. Meaning we’ll be able to create the content we need without burdening our in-house staff with writing requests.”
For Annika, being able to outsource content and know it’s taken care of is a huge relief. “Content is just not my bailiwick; it’s a painful, laborious process for me to write something. But when I’m already drowning in content demands, I don’t need someone who can describe the water — I need someone to provide an actual solution. From nDash’s ability to scale to help us meet our goals to their willingness to react quickly to changing priorities and ‘fire drills’ that are a natural part of working with an agile business, I know I can count on them to help me get through the rapids.”
An “Unsung Hero”
Today, nDash freelancers provide Gradient with more than 25 content deliverables each month — and Annika credits nDash’s managing editor with doing the heavy lifting. “Our managing editor Jenn is amazing at ensuring content is vetted against our requirements and brand guidelines before it ever lands in my inbox,” she said. “I simply don’t have the bandwidth to do serious editing on content; Jenn is our unsung hero, tackling the initial editing, so I only need to take a glance before approval.”
“nDash knows the way I work and has done a great job of choosing writers who are the right fit for my chaos,” joked Annika. “I know when I put a deadline on a deliverable, the team will always complete it on time. I trust their judgment.”
What Can You Learn from Gradient Cyber?
The main takeaway from our experience is that nDash provides a scalable, easy-to-manage solution to help meet your content needs. Companies with lean in-house teams can regularly produce critical content without adding unnecessary management headaches when taking this approach.
About Gradient Cyber
Gradient is a cybersecurity products and services company that visualizes an organization’s cybersecurity health. Gradient is the only Security Intelligence Platform that cross–correlates live NetFlow and logs information with a 500-point risk analysis evaluation. In doing so, it produces weighted evidence that is clear and concise and provides actionable insights for continuous cybersecurity improvement. For more information, visit Gradient Cyber’s website.
Is your brand ready to start a journey to relevant, compelling content? Join nDash today.