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dnsUNFILTERED: Abigail Hendren, Authenticity in Marketing
In this episode of dnsUNFILTERED, host Mikey Pruitt and guest Abigail Hendren discuss the importance of on-camera presence, authenticity in marketing, and the nuances of effective communication for today's landscape. They explore how to engage audiences through video messaging, the significance of understanding different platforms, and the balance between aesthetics and message in design. The conversation also touches on personal branding, the role of AI in creative processes, and the importance of transparency in crisis management. Throughout the discussion, they emphasize the need for marketers to be genuine and relatable to build trust with their audience.
Abigail Hendren(0:00)
Hi everyone. Welcome to dnsUNFILTERED with Mikey Pruitt and this week with me, Abigail Hendren. Mikey, do you want to take it away?
Mikey Pruitt (00:19)
Sure, Abigail, tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at DNSFilter.
Abigail Hendren (00:24)
Yeah, so my title here at DNSFilter is assistant brand marketer. I've been here for almost two years, get to work with the lovely Mikey. Pretty pumped to make my dnsUNFILTERED debut. I've only been yanking his arm to get me on here for about the past two years, if that's how long I've been here. So pretty pumped to be on here today.
Mikey Pruitt (00:44)
Well, I'm really excited to have you and I think we should do like a kind of a meta episode where we kind of bestow upon the audience. Not like, know, not exactly like that, but you know, give some tips and pointers that we've learned over the years for marketing purposes. So Abigail, if you didn't already notice is a natural on camera. And I think it's natural with training and that's kind of what I wanted to get into first, but I wanted to preface that with, you know, why would you want to, you know, build a new skill that is something you don't have like being on camera? Like, why is that important? And I don't know, do you want to answer like, why do you, why would being on camera be an important skill to have?
Abigail Hendren (01:26)
Yeah, I think being on camera, especially in this day and age, 2025, everyone has a little mini video camera at the palm of their hand. Everyone can record a video. Everyone can take a video of themselves. So I think, especially with my generation, there's just a lot more access to experiencing yourself on camera. It's something that has been available basically since I was a kid, since I was old enough to use technology. ⁓ And I think a lot of it is just about finding like, hey, I've always felt really comfortable talking to people or talking in front of crowds and how does that play into my future career? Because you want to do something later on that you're comfortable with, that you feel like you have a natural ability for, and that you enjoy. And this is something I enjoy, like getting to come talk to you and all of those types of things.
While it might not be the most necessary skill set for a graphic designer, for a brand marketer, for someone who works in cybersecurity, I definitely think it's something that can help you no matter what you're doing. ⁓
Mikey Pruitt (02:25)
I would argue that it is a necessary skill for almost any profession. Like if you think of the work from home culture that we're in, being on camera is ⁓ almost a daily occurrence at work. And if you are, let's say, a shy-ish, nerdy type MSP owner operator, or even someone in the IT department, maybe your best skill is not talking to other people on camera, especially like just talking to the camera, like now I'm looking directly at the camera like, and I'm like all by myself and it's very, it hurts inside just a little bit. It feels very awkward. But if you want to like get new customers or if you want to, you know, sell something to your boss, to your board, you need some skills that could be presented well on camera, just by the nature of the world we live in.
Abigail Hendren (03:23)
I agree and even if it's not the most, you know, say if you're not the most natural on camera, if it's not your forte, I still think public speaking skills are so important, especially in marketing. People want to buy things or they want to work with people, especially in an increasingly digital age. There's limited human interaction, especially we're all work from home. Mikey and I talk almost every day, but we never see each other in person maybe once a year. So I think it's really, yeah, one time a year. So I think it's really important to have some sort of comfort on camera so you can continue making connections and that way you can better market to your audience. Like I said, people wanna work with other people. They don't wanna talk to the chat bot all the time about your product.
Mikey Pruitt (04:03)
Yes, that was,
I think that was the key where people want to buy and sell and work with people. So I am curious. So Abigail, one of the immediate things I noticed when you started DNS filter is your comfort level on camera is like off the charts. Like I am comfortable on camera because I forced myself to do it. And now it's like, okay, it's fine. You're not going to die because you're on camera.
Abigail Hendren (04:28)
Well, you are good at it. You've had a lot of good practice, so don't sell yourself short.
Mikey Pruitt (04:29)
Thank you, thank you. But
I'm curious where this started from, where your camera presence became something that you noticed, like, I'm actually pretty good at this.
Abigail Hendren (04:41)
Yeah, I think if you asked one of my parents, they'd say it's always been there. It's always just been something naturally speaking in front of people has never scared me. So I took that into account when I was considering career options. And I think starting in middle school or high school, I got involved with broadcasts like the school newspaper and the journalism and I just really loved it. It was always something that came naturally to me. So
When I went to college, I actually was training for broadcast journalism. I wanted to be a reporter. So I spent a lot of time doing mock broadcasts on local TV stations and things like that. I ended up changing my mind and realizing while I do enjoy being on camera, I also really enjoy being creative. And that's what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. And I felt like I could be a lot more creative with a branding element. But luckily, like we've been talking about, on camera presence can really play into branding and marketing and all the things that you and I do. So got kind of lucky that it did end up impacting what I did in my career, even though that original career where I kind of trained to be on camera with broadcast journalism isn't what I ended up doing.
Mikey Pruitt (05:47)
So you are gifted with this ability naturally, but you also did a lot of time like training. You got a lot of experience. Exposed yourself to something to refine it and make it, I would say, a specialty of yours. So I think it's important to call out like, even though if you're not good at something, anything, specifically on camera presence is what we're talking about here.
But you can train and get experience into being better. That's what I have had to do over the last two years. Just get experience, train, treat it as anything else you would learn. Like, how do you install a VM on Proxmox? You're gonna go do some research. You're gonna run some commands like that type of thing. And eventually you're going to be better at it than when you start.
Abigail Hendren (06:39)
Exactly. The more you try it, the better, right? The further you get from that first time where it's really scary, the easier it'll get. And like you said, it's just like learning any new skill. You got to research it and figure out what works best for you.
Mikey Pruitt (06:54)
Exactly. So if you overcome this fear being on camera, what do you think are some of the important things to point out? Like if you're going to record a video for your customer base, like say you're giving, you have like a new product that came out and you want to send a video message to your customer base, like maybe they want to buy it. What are some of the key points you would say to incorporate into?
Abigail Hendren (08:05)
It's going to sound super cheesy, but be yourself. mean, the biggest thing is, like I said, people want to buy from people. think especially in 2025, people are kind of starting to get sick of the whole corporate jargon. I'm putting on a front to make sure my company looks good. People just want to hear, hey, we do cybersecurity. This is, you know, how our product is going to work for you. And you should trust me because I'm being real with you. I'm a person. I'm not trying to, you know, put on any front. I think the more
you, you can be, your audience will pick up on that and feel more comfortable. A huge part of marketing is trusting your audience, trusting you. If my audience trusts me and feels like I'm not lying to them, I'm not being fake on camera, they're going to be more willing to trust the message I'm trying to get across about our product. And so I think the biggest thing is just to be natural, be yourself. Don't try to make yourself this persona on camera. Just be you, do what you do, you know?
And it sounds really simple, but I feel like that's the truth.
Mikey Pruitt (09:13)
I 100 % agree like authenticity really breaks through all the junk we all read on like LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram and all these places like you can tell if someone cares about what they're talking about pretty easily unless they're just really really good at faking it which is
Abigail Hendren (09:23)
Yeah.
Yeah, unless they're just really good at faking it, but I think people can tell authenticity these days. Like you can pick up on it pretty well and kind of gauge for yourself whether or not, because even if, you it may not be exactly what you're looking for, if you trust someone and you think that they're telling the truth and they're not trying to put on some sort of act over another, that might put you ahead against a competitor in my eyes.
Mikey Pruitt (09:55)
That's it. And I'm so glad that you used that as the example. I was not sure what you were going to say, but that is like the perfect way to say it. And something I hadn't really thought about, but yeah, like being your authentic self is just is a great sales tool.
Abigail Hendren (10:07)
Because at the end of the day with with marketing you're trying to find a perfect match. I don't want to market to people who don't have a need for our product. I don't want to you know target audiences that already have a DNS security solution that's already working really well for their needs. You want to find the people who need what you need and who will listen to you and what you're trying to say authentically and they need it. So it's it's on both sides.
are you a good match for our product and are we a good match for what they need at the end of the day. So you don't want to put on any front because then later on they might be like, ⁓ what was this? You were acting like this and now I'm using the product. It's nothing like that. You're looking to find a perfect match. It's like a matchmaking service, right?
Mikey Pruitt (10:56)
Exactly.
That's kind of what marketing is. So let's talk about another piece of marketing. So we've been talking about cameras and video, but let's go back to ⁓ design, graphics, ⁓ messaging. What do you think are some of the pitfalls that people, when they're designing some marketing piece, maybe it's an ad or a billboard or some visual image that's going to appear somewhere, what are some of the places people fail on that?
Abigail Hendren (10:58)
I think this is an easy one, but one thing that we as an industry and cybersecurity can struggle with is not making our message consumable because sometimes you want to market a product and say, does this, this, this, this, and this, and it's amazing. And it's like, well, I'm scrolling on Instagram. I just saw a cute dog video. I'm not in great, like the mental mode to switch to technical.
Jargon and go through all this. So I think the biggest thing is making it Digestible and making it match your audience like our posts are different on LinkedIn for social media like the visual post we put out on LinkedIn to be different than what we put out on Instagram Because there are different audiences you're looking for different things on each platform And I think it's important to match the message you're trying to get across with the mindset that the user is going to be in at that point
So I think a big mistake we make is just saying, hey, this is the information, take it. Now on the flip side, another mistake you can make with design is making it too aesthetically pleasing to the point that it doesn't communicate a message. There's a weird balance to strike there. You don't want to be like, this graphic is so beautiful, everyone's going to love it. Sure, I love it, I passed it, it looks great. But did it get the message across that we needed it to? Did it tell people what booth we're going to be at our conference next week? No, everyone was just like cool graphic and then swiped. Especially right now, it's like our attention spans on social media are already so minimal. They're like this big. You have, there's a very delicate balance to strike between, you know, communicating a message but not overwhelming people with information. So ⁓ it's not the most straightforward answer, because like I said, it's a balance, but it's important to make sure that you're not doing too much of either, I think.
Mikey Pruitt (13:16)
You mentioned some really awesome points there. First, I did not mention that Abigail also mans the DNS filter social media accounts. But one of the cool things that you just mentioned is that you have different messaging, different aesthetics for each platform.
Abigail Hendren (13:30)
I think it's important. LinkedIn, like we say, it's very B2B. Like you're talking to other businesses, you're talking to your coworkers, you're talking to potential clients. Whereas Instagram, like we might take some of our funnier, like our meme content there, because people are looking for things that are a little sillier on Instagram. It's a little less business focused than say LinkedIn would be. ⁓ So we definitely take that into consideration when posting. Like if we're trying to hop on
a trend, then maybe Facebook isn't the best place for it. You kind of just have to consider your audience in each platform, which luckily with software and different tools, it's pretty easy to gauge what works where. But I definitely think knowing your audience and especially knowing your platform is very important ⁓ with marketing today.
Mikey Pruitt (14:22)
Yeah, so knowing your audience and the platform that you're trying to reach them on really plays heavily into what you produce.
Abigail Hendren (14:28)
Definitely. mean, at the end of the day, we're trying to get the same message across. It's just a matter of what medium is going to get you there.
Mikey Pruitt (14:39)
I'm curious to say, I do this all the time. I'm using the AI tools that are at my disposal to like create craft messaging. And I'll say like, this is for LinkedIn or this is for Instagram or this is for my CEO or this is for the board of directors and set the tone for AI. Is that something that, that you guys use on the, I know I do. I'm on the marketing team.
Abigail Hendren (14:43)
Absolutely. especially a lot of people are afraid of AI, but I'm more on the side of what all can it do for us? What all can optimize? Typically, I'll take like this is the general message I want to get out. This is the caption I'm kind of toying with. And I'll say now optimize this for say, on Instagram, our audience is a little bit smaller just because cybersecurity isn't as active on Instagram as they are.
LinkedIn or Reddit or Twitter. So I'll say optimize this for Instagram growth and LinkedIn engagement and et cetera, et cetera. And it's really amazing seeing what it can do and how I can just be like, okay, great. I trust it. Like let's run with it.
Mikey Pruitt (15:44)
That was cool because you're kind of talking about like the call to action. Do you want engagement like likes or thumbs up or whatever it is? Do you want comments? Do you want people to reshare? So have that as part of the equation of what you want to produce. Like what is the call to action you want? And like the call to action used to be like, you know, a button on the image. Like that may not be the best call to action depending on the platform. And the
Abigail Hendren (15:48)
is all about knowing what your goal is. Like if I if I want to see a 3.26 engagement rate on LinkedIn, then I have to know that I want to improve engagement on LinkedIn. That has to be a goal that you're working toward. I can't just be like, hey, I want our LinkedIn to be better. You have to identify your goals in order to reach them. So I think that's really important.
Mikey Pruitt (16:29)
Better, just better. What did you say? 3.68 better, more engagement than like the last post. So that is something that the nerdy folks in the audience can actually look at to see like, was this successful? God, we didn't even talk about that. what do you, what is a metric of success that you always look for?
Abigail Hendren (16:36)
A metric of success that I look for on our posts is definitely, I think engagement is huge because you can get pushed to a thousand accounts. But if you take the time, even if it's just one person, we put out a post and only one person stops, engages with it and says, hey, this was really cool. This really helped. That's still one person that you got your message across to in a way that had a more direct impact. If they're still taking the time to write out, hey, this really helped.
I think that's a really, really, really powerful metric, especially in a time where our social media feeds are so saturated. You might have seen 10 other cybersecurity companies post something similar before you came across our post. So if we stood out enough to someone for them to stop, either like it, repost it, reshare it, comment on it, then that means that it had to resonate with them in some way. So I think the more engagement, the better, in my opinion.
Mikey Pruitt (17:43)
So is there like an unwritten rule, and I'm asking for myself here, is there like an unwritten rule on like how often you should post on a platform?
Abigail Hendren (17:52)
The trouble with social media that I find really interesting is that it changes all the time. Like you'll see the algorithm says you need to post minimum five times a week. ⁓ Or the algorithm says if you post twice a day, you'll get pushed out to twice as many people. I feel like the statistics and the algorithm is changing all the time. So the best thing you can do is post what you genuinely think will be meaningful to your audience.
Because you don't want to oversaturate your audience's feed with saying, hey, here's this random thing I put out because LinkedIn said I should be posting six times a week. That's not impactful. That's not going to bring engagement. That's just you trying to follow an algorithm. And I think if you're not putting intention and, once again, goals behind what you're posting, then it's not going to work the way you want it to. So the most important thing is just to be authentic with your content.
post when you think you should post and post things that you think will be meaningful to your audience. And if you're doing that, you should be okay. I think.
Mikey Pruitt (18:51)
I totally agree, and I've seen that consistency matters, not necessarily to the audience as much, but the algorithm really is more preferable if you are consistently posting at a time and date, like, you know, Mondays at noon or like that, the algorithms like, we're expecting your noon post. And like, I don't know how these algorithms, you know, they're fairly in depth from what I understand. So they can understand the cadence of a person. So does that matter?
Abigail Hendren (19:21)
I do think consistency matters not only for you and just knowing like, hey, this is part of my job. I want to make sure I'm consistent with it. I guess it does matter for the algorithm. But the good thing is that at least for DNS filter, we always have some sort of message we're trying to share with our audience. So we never run into an issue of consistency. My general rule of thumb.
Mikey Pruitt (19:43)
Yeah, you're like, you're like pulling back the consistency. You're like, that's too many today.
Abigail Hendren (19:45)
Yeah, I've messaged, I can't tell you all how many times I've messaged Mikey like, hey, is it okay if I post this a little later? We have so much going on this week. So that's the beauty of having evergreen content is if you have something you want to get out, but it's not time sensitive. DNSFilter, our role, we post five times a week, typically on weekdays because we're a B2B business. So it makes sense to be sharing on weekdays when our audience is most online, especially with LinkedIn.
And that's the consistency I like, but that's also the minimum amount we could get by with our social calendar. Like I've said, we have so many things that we are really passionate about sharing with our audience. So ⁓ I'm struggling to even get a minimum of five posts a week, but I also want to make sure those five posts digest. So that's kind of why I choose not to post and why Serena, my manager and myself have talked about not posting on the weekends because those five posts...
I see all the time when I get on LinkedIn like, hey, this was posted two weeks ago and it'll be at the top of my feed and I'll just be seeing it. So it all depends on the algorithm and I don't want posts to get lost because we're doing twice a day or something, you know?
Mikey Pruitt (20:53)
Yeah, so I think this play, this is a thing you have to find out for yourself, what's comfortable for you, how often does inspiration strike you to do that, and what does the audience, ⁓ how much can they digest, how much do they care to digest, and how much does the algorithm play into posting? So you kind of have to find that sweet spot, is what it sounds like. And that sweet spot may change.
Abigail Hendren (20:59)
Yeah, there's no right or wrong answer. Yeah, it changes. There's no right or wrong answer. It's all about what works for you and what works for your business. ⁓ But I agree. think the biggest things are posting authentic content and making sure you are consistent about posting. You don't want to post five times a week and be like, this is great, and then not post for two weeks.
Mikey Pruitt (21:36)
So
you kind of hinted at this a moment ago about cybersecurity specifically and you know, MSPs posting or companies that are in cybersecurity like DNSFilter. Like we have very technical content, but we want to keep it generic enough to give people, know, that people can digest it. Like everyone can digest it, understand what we're saying. How do you like avoid that jargon?
Mikey Pruitt (22:06)
You're like chat GPT. That's my answer.
Abigail Hendren (22:09)
Yeah, I do use chat GPT and Gemini quite a bit. Be like, hey, explain this to me like I'm five. Like Mikey will send me something like, hey, I found this Python script that would make your design work a lot quicker. And I'm like, okay, chat GPT, explain this to me like I'm five. I definitely think it is a true story. Like I'm not even just using that like an example. Mikey said, hey, do you know Python? And I was like, what? The snake?
Mikey Pruitt (22:15)
Eli Five, yeah.
That's a true story, actually.
I'mlike, just activate a, you know, a virtual environment in Python and you can run this grid. It'll be super easy. And you're like, I don't know about that.
Mikey Pruitt (22:48)
avoiding jargon in cybersecurity specific marketing or just technical marketing. How does that differ?
Abigail Hendren (22:54)
It's important to remember it's like for every MSP we have that we're marketing to and we want to make sure they understand what our product does. We also have a single user who might be viewing that and being like, Hey, I want to up my cybersecurity practices. So that's why it can be so important, not only just for digestibility on a feed when you're not necessarily in work mode in technical jargon mode. It's also important, especially with what we do DNS filter. always say we're the first line of defense against cyber attacks. So
we're very marketable to an everyday user who just wants to avoid some phishing emails and to step up their security in their digital environments. So I think it's important to, at least for me, it's helpful because I'm not as experienced with all the technical jargon. I feel like I have a unique perspective of being able to dumb it down because I'm like, do I understand this? Because if I don't understand it, then an average user is not going to understand it. ⁓
In the same way you can say, it to me like I'm five, explain it to me like my dad's gonna read this post and try to understand what it means. And if my dad can understand it, then we're probably safe for the audience to understand it. But I think the biggest thing is considering your audience and what all they may or may not understand before you press it.
Mikey Pruitt (24:13)
So yeah, know your audience. Speaking of the audience, how does that feedback get weighed in? Whether it's the engagement metrics or someone actually sends an email back or how does all that filter into the whole process?
Abigail Hendren (24:15)
Yeah, I think luckily we have monitoring tools that will help us identify those things ⁓ and see, you know, it'll identify outliers for us of like, hey, this got 0 % engagement on this platform. Maybe don't post this type of content there anymore. ⁓ You know, is it worth your time at that point if you're finding 0 % engagement, but also comparing metrics and seeing, hey, like this ⁓ is real example of DNS filter, our engagement was up.
336 % on Instagram this one week. And we realized it was because we were posting native photos instead of a graphic or an article. So it seems that our Instagram user base is more inclined to engage with just a regular photo. So then we can kind of take that and test things. The beauty is we have all the time in the world to try things out and say, hey, this kind of looks like it's a trend. But a lot of it is just pattern recognition, seeing
hey, this seems like it worked, let's try that again, or hey, this isn't really working, let's back off of it and focus on something else for the time being.
Mikey Pruitt (25:36)
Yeah, I've totally noticed that too. Like if I post a specific thing, like I post on LinkedIn a lot. You're like, yeah, I've seen.
Abigail Hendren (25:43)
Mm-hmm. Yes, I do. I love Mikey's LinkedIn posts. Go give him a follow.
Mikey Pruitt (25:47)
So
I've seen it's a road to CESA
Abigail Hendren (25:52)
Yeah, if you want some really fun AI generated, Mikey cropped into things pictures, then you should definitely join because it gives me a good chuckle every week or so at least.
Mikey Pruitt (26:04)
But then that's the thing that I was noticing. Like LinkedIn really likes a picture of yourself, preferably definitely some human and not a like AI picture of yourself, like a real picture. I like to, you know, I like to dabble in Photoshop. So I like to, you know, make them, make them nice and pretty. Like I have this thing, like I just can't post like the ugly ugly photo. I don't know what it is. Vanity, whatever it happens to be. But LinkedIn likes certain things.
Abigail Hendren (26:10)
The way you do that because you are so specific about it you make it themed and you make it fun. I think your audience loves that because even me knowing you, I'm like, every time I open up LinkedIn, I'm like, what am I gonna see from Mikey today? So I think that's your brand and that's the way you like connect with your audience in a way that no one else does. So it's really important to hone in on that and realize what you like and what your audience comes to expect from you.
I like that your brand. the speaking of your brand, how important do you think it is to, to, for people to have like a personal brand? Like you are part of a company, me particularly part of a company, but also like a personal brand in whatever influencer type of thing you, ⁓ it kind of gets, the word kind of gets associated with that together, but like that, that kind of builds the authenticity. Like if you're a owner of an IT company, an MSP or something, having a personal brand is probably going to benefit your business. And I can give you specific examples of this, but I'm curious what you think first.
Abigail Hendren (27:30)
Yeah, I and I'd be I'm very interested to hear about the examples because I have some in mind as well. But I definitely think you like we've talked about you want people to trust you and you want people to associate you with something so they'll remember you. So I think having your own personal brand is like
Like anytime I see a post similar to Mikey's, I'm like, hey, that's kind of similar to Mikey. And I think it's important to have that recognition of like, hey, this is a Mikey thing. Like, or hey, this is a DNS filter thing. Hey, this is an Abigail thing. If you can pick up on that, that means that your audience has some sort of recognition with what you do, who you are, and that's really important for marketing and that level of trust we've talked about. You want people to recognize you for something you do, your authenticity, whatever it is.
and then either trust you or be able to refer back to you later. So even if you're not, an influencer, if you're not public facing, I think everyone should still have a personal brand that's who they are, whether that's just something you use in your daily life or that's something you use in work. We're all very unique and I think it's kind of a unique way to think about it of like working on yourself is more like working on my personal brand, working on the brand of Abigail. Abigail wants to run more in 2025.
Mikey Pruitt (28:48)
random Abigail.
Abigail Hendren (28:51)
part of my brand, know, even if that's not necessarily work related. even if it's not applicable to you in your career, can be your personal brand I think is important in your everyday life.
Mikey Pruitt (29:03)
So the most prominent example I've seen in the MSP space, MSP owner named Tom Lawrence, I'm sure most people listening this have heard of Tom. Hi, Tom, if you're listening, you are. Has a very prominent YouTube channel, a few hundred thousand subscribers. I think it's like, maybe it's even getting close to a million, I don't know. But he's been doing YouTube tutorials for quite a while. And he was just himself, like, I want to help people learn how to build a server.
Install this software run this other thing. this new thing. I learned very technical content, but he was a MSP owner and After a little while of doing YouTube like he no longer had to do marketing because people were flooding him Trying
to say like can you be our MSP? Like I've seen your content really love it and he's like, well, I don't live near you So then he figured out a way to be like a an MSP that could work from anywhere leveraging local talent to do some of the hands-on stuff while he and his team would do the design work at like their home office, wherever that was, I forget, but think Missouri somewhere anyway, it doesn't matter. But by him, you know, being on camera, being his authentic self, doing things that he really liked, giving out education really benefited his business in a way that he could kind of now like 10 years later, maybe 15 can kind of step away and really just focus on the YouTube, you know, public persona aspect and the business runs in the background and, you know, it's running on all cylinders.
Abigail Hendren (30:34)
Yeah. And that comes back to that level of trust is.
I've watched his YouTube videos a thousand times. I know he knows exactly how to do this. I've seen him do this and that. I know he knows his stuff. I want him to be my MSP. To the point that people are reaching out and saying like, hey, I trust you. I've seen your work. I know what you do. So I think even if it's scary, even if it's not your thing, putting yourself out there and showing what you do, even if you don't have an on camera camera presence, screen record yourself doing whatever it is that you do, put it out there and you might be able to help someone no matter, even if it's just one or two people.
might be able to help someone with what they're doing and build some trust in some level. And I'm interested, Mikey, what you have to say about that, because I feel like you've taken a somewhat similar path. Like you came from the MSP realm and now you're very heavily involved in marketing. You have your own personal brand that's popping off. Like, I'm kind of curious what made you make the switch from being more technically focused to now being more of a marketing persona in some way.
Mikey Pruitt (31:35)
Yeah, I think it was a pretty natural transition. So like I'm doing a very similar things to Tom. Like I'll turn my camera over here and show you what I'm working on over here in the corner. my gosh. Look at all those wires. So I had to turn that server off to record this because it is so loud. But I'm doing some testing on its new hardware that I purchased and I'm recording it and like, we'll put out videos like this is what I learned today on what not to do on your new server, like breaking stuff. And I just think it's fun. I like to educate people on how to do things. I want to create like a polished version, but I think people find the value in the things that you did that where you messed up. Like I definitely did some things wrong yesterday trying to fix this thing on Sunday. Like it's brand new, dealing with things that I don't know about, but I think people would get benefit out of learning from my mistakes. Like, don't do this.
Abigail Hendren (32:28)
And like you said, you enjoy that. That's fun for you. And now you're helping people who are like maybe building their own server and they can say, well, you know, that guy, Mikey, he did this and it didn't work. So I'm not going to try that. You're saving someone else time. you know, you get to now you can laugh at yourself. You can do whatever, but it's something you enjoy doing. But you're also building trust with other people who are interested in the same things you are. So say one of those people is later on is looking for a DNS security solution. They're like, hey, what's that? What does Mikey work for? Mikey from DNSFilter. That's what it is. And they can reach out to you even if, yeah, even if we're not, you know, depending on their use case, whatever we are, if we're a match or we're not, you can help point them in the right direction for what they're looking for.
Mikey Pruitt (33:20)
And that really is the whole strategy kind of bulled down. And I'm not doing filming me messing up that server to result in DNSFilter sales, but it might. That might actually happen.
Abigail Hendren (33:31)
You never know. It's the beauty of making connections. You never know what'll happen. You never know who will need your product later down the road. And now that you've built that level of trust from them, because you can see me like, hey, I messed this up. You're not going to lie about it. You're going to be like, I did the wrong thing with my server today. And they can trust you not to be like, DNSFilter is the best. They know you're going to be real with them and give them the lowdown on what they need. Even though DNSFilter is the best. That wouldn't have been a lie. It is the best.
Mikey Pruitt (33:58)
It is the best.
Well, now with the combination of DNSFilter and Zorus, like, it really is a compelling product. That's what I'll leave it there.
Abigail Hendren (34:00)
That wouldn't be a lie.
Yes, I'm very excited to see what happens as we continue to merge with them.
Mikey Pruitt (34:13)
So now I want to do some real time dissecting of responses, starting with a news article that I sent to Abigail earlier. You probably saw this and were like, what are you talking about? So this is like, you could open up your web browser and type cybersecurity breach, and you would find one. So this one was from last week. A company that I'm not going to mention had a ransomware attack. They were like a dialysis company, medical company that performed analysis on people and they were ransomware, know, bad things happened. All their stuff got locked down. They couldn't access things. But I don't want to talk about the story necessarily. I want to talk about the company. If I was that company, if you were that company, what would a good response look like?
Abigail Hendren (35:02)
Yeah, think it's important for the response to go chiefly to your customers. That's who you're focusing on. You don't want to give, you know, I'm trying to control public image. You want to contact your customers, say, hey, this happened.
And in my opinion, think transparency is always the way. You would rather get ahead of something and not control the narrative, but you would rather get ahead of it, tell your customers exactly what happened, exactly what you're doing to fix it, and hope it all plays out from there. But it would be much worse if you don't tell your customers, they find out about it later, and then they're like, why the heck didn't this company reach out to me and explain this? That's sketchy, that's shady, and then that affects your trust relationship with them.
So as much as it's intimidating, because there's always trolls, there's always people who are going to be mad regardless of what you say. I transparency is the most important part. And also saying, what are we doing to fix this? You don't want to say, hey, this ransomware attack happened. Sorry, your data is safe though. You're going to say this ransomware attack happened. This is what's in place to stop it from happening again. And this is how we're going to move forward to make sure that no data got breached.
yada, yada, yada, and then keep an open line of communication for if anyone has questions. Unfortunately, a lot of those stories do get blown up in the media and then, you know, they kind of get taken with. I think focusing on your customers first is the most important thing from a brand perspective, because like we've been saying, I feel like I've said this a lot in the last since we've been on is that trust is the most important thing with your customers. So you don't want to do anything to break that level of trust by keeping something from them.
Mikey Pruitt (36:37)
Yeah, and trust has been damaged.
Abigail Hendren (36:40)
Yeah, yeah, especially when it's already been a little damage. If there's a security breach or something like that, you don't want to make it any worse by hiding something.
Mikey Pruitt (36:49)
So this particular company, if you go to their homepage right now, has a big banner that's like information on system outages, learn more. They have a phone number, two different 1-800 numbers to call that you can ask questions about and an entire page about what happened, what they're doing to prevent it in the future, that type of thing. So I think they handled it well and according to what you just mentioned.
Abigail Hendren (37:09)
Yeah.
That's awesome. Yeah, good job. Good job, unnamed company.
Mikey Pruitt (37:14)
Yeah, good job company that I won't say. It's super easy to find if you want to look
it up. So then I have another branding exercise, which is for ourselves, DNS filter and this podcast. So Abigail being such an amazing on camera talent and a marketing expert. I'm curious what fresh perspectives and, you know, what would you bring to this podcast to make it any more, you know, fruitful as we go.
Abigail Hendren (37:46)
Yeah, I think the chief perspective I have here is an outsider's perspective. Mikey and I have touched on this, but I am no expert on the technical jargon. I do have a pretty good understanding of DNS filters product and the general industry terms. But I'm definitely, I can bring a fresh perspective and then I'm like, wait, why does this matter? Why is this interesting to us? So I think it kind of just brings up a whole different level of ways you can dive into things if there's someone who doesn't know all of the ins and outs and it can help you reach a broader audience of, I don't know that much about cyber security, but they're going to explain it to me on this podcast. And I also just think, you know, it's nice for you to have someone to talk to. You have a lot of interesting insights that you can share. And if you're doing all the interviewing, you can't share that.
Mikey Pruitt (38:40)
So, that's actually interesting because, so like this episode we've kind of broken to like, we've broken the fourth wall or fifth wall, whatever it's called. And like, this is like kind of how the sausage is made type of thing. And I'm curious, let us know in the comments, if you think episodes like this are beneficial, like, were these marketing tips useful? Did you learn more about the DNS filter and the DNS filter brand that was helpful for you? I am curious to understand that from the audience. So definitely let us know in the comments.
Abigail Hendren (39:10)
And I definitely think there's also, you know, people out there we can reach who, hey, if you're in cybersecurity marketing, this might be helpful for you too, to kind of listen to other people in your industry talking about branding and other things like that.
Mikey Pruitt (39:26)
Yeah, so you're like kind of like getting out of your box a little bit. So I interview the whole show premises, basically interviewing people in tech and cybersecurity and entrepreneurship. now we're with this conversation where we'll talk about different things which could potentially attract more different audiences that may lead to more authentic connections that may result in sales at some point.
Abigail Hendren (39:33)
Because we're the best. They'll find that out as soon as they start watching. Exactly.
Mikey Pruitt (39:49)
Exactly.
So what do you think the guest lineup for a show like dnsUNFILTERED should look like? Do you think it's kind of where it needs to be? Have you heard of anybody that you'd be like, I'd love to hear this interview from a person.
Abigail Hendren (40:07)
Yeah, obviously I have a unique perspective. I enjoy every episode of dnsUNFILTERED. I get to watch every single one of them and promote them on social media alongside Mikey. So I have a pretty good handle on it. I really enjoy, even from an outsider's perspective, learning about some of the insights that these industry leaders have and some of our favorite people at DNSFilter, our favorite friendlies, as we call them, have been on the show and that's great. I think there's always room to expand
Mikey Pruitt (40:17)
and edit some of them.
Abigail Hendren (40:37)
There's a whole lot of interesting people that we could talk to in the cybersecurity marketing society and expanding past that realm. So I think there are lot of interesting things we can do with it to, like you said, build more authentic connections and kind of expand the dnsUNFILTERED brand.
Mikey Pruitt (40:56)
Very cool. And now I have some rapid questions for our marketing professional, professional Abigail Hendren here. I have, what is your go-to productivity tool?
Abigail Hendren (40:58)
Okay, so I do love Asana. We use Asana at DNSFilter and I love it. But in my personal daily life, I love Notion. I use Notion every day. It's a really interesting productivity tool if you've never heard of it. And I'm also unfortunately a huge Notes app girl. My Notes app, good thing I have OnePass and good thing I have cybersecurity protection on my phones because it holds the key to my life.
Abigail Hendren (41:34)
I love the notes app. love Google Calendar. I use my Google Calendar religiously. So those are my favorites.
Mikey Pruitt (41:39)
The notes app on iOS and the Mac are so good now. They're actually really good.
Abigail Hendren (41:44)
They are, and you can organize it really well, it's easily accessible, it's free, it's already on your phone if you have an Apple device or on your computer and connects across device. Sometimes I'm on my laptop and I want to make a note of something and it'll show up on my phone later. So I love the connection between.
Mikey Pruitt (42:01)
Yeah, if you want really good syncing for notes in your grocery list, NoteZap on Apple platforms is the way to go. Sorry, Windows users. Wait, maybe Notes is available for Windows. I don't know. Somebody let us know.
Mikey Pruitt (42:18)
Alright, what is your so Abigail is an amazing designer as well as a on camera talent, video editor etc. But what is your favorite design tool?
Abigail Hendren (42:30)
Okay, so I'm very loyal to Photoshop. I love Photoshop. I started using Photoshop when I was 13 or 14, but I have to admit Canva is popping off lately. This is kind of a hot take in the design community, because most designers will say, you know, you're not a real designer if you're not using Adobe Suite, if you're not using Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, all those things. But I genuinely believe that Canva can do so much.
It has so much collaboration capacity. It makes things so much easier if you're ever in a rush. And they're really expanding their capabilities. I think they're going to catch up to Adobe in the next. Like you can write it here. Abigail Hendren says, Canva might catch up to Adobe within the next five years. I also am a huge fan of Melanie Perkins, the founder of Canva, the CEO. And I just have a lot of faith in their brand. So, well, Photoshop is like my nostalgic old time, like I'm married to it.
I really love Canva and Canva's really starting to take the cake for me.
Mikey Pruitt (43:31)
Yeah, I mean, I've used Canva and it does feel like cheating, but in like a good way because like, like I have things to do.
Abigail Hendren (43:36)
It's cheating in a good way. There's no harm in accessibility. and Adobe can be a bit difficult to access and use if you're not design savvy, if you don't have the training, but can, but anyone can use. And if you're a designer, you'll know how to use Canva in the ways that the everyday person may not. So you can still make your work stand out and still make your work technically sound, but it just really streamlines a lot of processes and makes things very easy, especially with.
Abigail Hendren (44:04)
If I want to work on something, I can tag you in Canva and say, hey, Mikey, come look at this. And you can comment back directly in Canva. And that's a difficult capability in Adobe when everything is so license-based. You can be an outside user and still view my Canva links. So I'm a big fan. I'll say it here.
Mikey Pruitt (44:22)
Canva, the cheat code for design, love it. All right, so this last one is maybe a stretch for Abigail and her cybersecurity knowledge, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. What is a cybersecurity myth you'd like to debunk?
Abigail Hendren (44:24)
It really is.
Ooh, that's a good one. Cybersecurity myth you'd like to debunk.
I'm trying to think. I know I have one, now that I'm on the spot, I'm gonna forget. ⁓
I don't know, me a suggestion, give me a hint.
Mikey Pruitt (44:57)
A hint? Ooh, let's see. AI knows more than you think.
Abigail Hendren (45:00)
I think a myth is that you can't trust AI. I think that a lot of people are really quick to say, I think huge myth is that think AI will automate many jobs, but I also think it's a myth that it could completely take a lot of our jobs. I think as long as you're still setting yourself apart. Also, AI is nowhere near enough advanced to take at least my job right now. I'm thinking about people always say like,
Mikey Pruitt (45:13)
Yes.
Abigail Hendren (45:35)
you know, with mid journey and whatever, designers are to be out of work. It's like, actually, you have to export in certain formats. You have to add text. You've got to like, especially for vectors, for boot designs and things like that. There's so many things you got to do. So I think my myth is that AI is going to take creative people's jobs because as much as I love AI chat, Chatiana, as I like to call her chat GPT, I gave her our name. It is one of my best friends, but she's not taking my job.
I still know what I'm doing better than her.
Mikey Pruitt (46:06)
And not only that, but I've seen Abigail use ⁓ Mid Journey, Canva has some AI features, even Photoshop now, and Chubbity, tech space things. You using those tools is creating more, certainly, output. And then if you take it into your power user tool and your skill level, you can really make those assets shine and produce way more than you could before.
Abigail Hendren (46:13)
Yeah, I think this like the video that you recently helped me out with that we were working on is a really interesting example of using AI in creative work because we wrote a script and then we took, I put the script into ChatGPT and said, now use this script prompt mid journey to create a storyboard for this script.
And then you prompt, so ChatGPT gave me the prompts for Mid Journey to create the storyboard. And then I took the images in Mid Journey and put them in a different AI software called Minimax to animate the images. And I went back to ChatGBT and said, give me a prompt for animating these images from Mid Journey in Minimax. So it's like, you can really pair these up like the, what is it? The Avengers Infinity War, the rings.
Like you can pair them all up and make your perfect video. And then we got a really cool, unique video that, you know, I haven't seen anyone do anything similar, at least in our industry by doing that. So you have to know how to, I think a huge thing is knowing how to leverage, chat GPT to be able to do more with your job and all AI, not just, not just Chatiana. Thanks Chatiana.
Mikey Pruitt (47:27)
Yeah, then.
Thanks, Chatiana.
And thank you, Abigail, for joining me today. That was a lot of fun.
Abigail Hendren (47:55)
Thank you for having me, Mikey, and thank you everyone who joined us for dnsUNFILTERED today. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed getting to hear a little more from Mikey. He deserves to be heard. He has so much good insight. So thanks for coming today. Drop a comment, whatever you think about this episode. Hopefully good things and let us know where we should go from here.