Services | Marketing for B2B Security & Technology Manufacturers — Maize

Services

The marketing team for B2B manufacturers.

Security in all its forms — physical, cyber, IT — and the technology companies built around it. Most agencies spend two quarters learning your category before they can sell it. We already know the editors, the awards calendar, the show floor, and the difference between a spec sheet and a story. Strategy through execution, in one set of hands.

Book a 20-minute briefing See the three engagements
40+Earned placements for a single client
9+Industry awards won since 2023
29Placements in one launch program
4thYear on retainer with our longest client

Trusted by

  • Genetec
  • Allegion
  • Seagate
  • dormakaba
  • FLIR Systems
  • MOBOTIX
  • Everon

Why this is hard

These are small industries that behave like small towns.

Pick any category we work in — video surveillance, access control, cyber, enterprise storage — and roughly a dozen publications matter. A few dozen editors decide what gets covered. The awards that move deals are submitted on a calendar you have to know by heart, and the relationships that get calls returned took years to build.

That's why marketing to technical B2B buyers tends to fail in two predictable ways.

The generalist agency

Excellent craft, no context. They spend the first two quarters learning what an access control panel does, pitch your launch to editors who've never heard of them, and produce content your sales team quietly stops sending.

The industry list shop

Real reach, no strategy. You buy access to a database and a slot in someone else's webinar. The volume is real; the positioning is whatever you walked in with. Nothing compounds, and next year you buy the list again.

What actually works

Knowing the category and owning the execution — so a point of view becomes a byline, a byline becomes a launch editors are already primed for, and a launch becomes an award submission. Same idea, three trips around the industry.

The engagements

Three ways to work with us.

Every engagement is scoped to a business outcome, staffed by the same senior team that sold it, and reported against numbers you'd repeat to your CEO. No account-manager handoffs, no junior swap after month three.

01

Positioning Sprint

For teams who know the product is good and can't explain why it's different.

A short, fixed-scope engagement that ends with a message you can hand to sales, marketing, and your CEO and get the same sentence back from all three.

What's included

  • Category and competitor teardown — what's already claimed, what's still open
  • Customer and channel-partner interviews
  • Positioning statement, proof hierarchy, and objection map
  • Messaging framework by audience: integrator, end user, distributor, press
  • Website and collateral audit against the new message
  • A live working session with your leadership team

What you walk away withOne message architecture the whole company uses — and a clear read on which of the two engagements below is worth funding next.

Most requested

02

Category Authority

For manufacturers who want to be the name that comes up before the RFP does.

Our flagship retainer, and the engine behind our longest-running client relationships. We turn each thing you build into three separate moments in the industry conversation.

What's included

  • Editorial calendar mapped to your roadmap and the industry show cycle
  • Bylined thought leadership placed with named editors
  • Press releases, media outreach, and briefing programs
  • Award strategy and full submission writing, calendar-managed
  • Speaking, panel, and roundtable placement
  • Case studies and customer stories built for the sales team
  • Trade show programs — pre-show demand, on-site content, post-show follow-through

What you walk away withA compounding body of earned coverage, awards, and third-party proof that keeps working after the retainer month ends.

03

Pipeline

For teams with a number to hit and a sales org waiting on qualified conversations.

Demand generation built on the same category knowledge — so the campaigns speak the buyer's language instead of translating from a generic B2B template.

What's included

  • Integrated campaign strategy and always-on calendar
  • Landing pages, conversion paths, and lead capture
  • Paid search, paid social, and retargeting — built and managed
  • Email nurture and lifecycle sequences
  • SEO and content built for the terms your buyers actually search
  • Sales enablement: decks, one-pagers, battlecards
  • Reporting on qualified pipeline, not impressions

What you walk away withA measurable demand system your team can see into — with attribution reported against pipeline, and the honest read when a channel isn't earning its budget.

How we get three cycles from one launch

Most companies announce a feature once. We run it three times.

A launch is a single day of attention. The same feature, sequenced properly, becomes a point of view, a news story editors already have context for, and an award your sales team cites for the next two years.

1

Seed the thinking

Weeks before anything ships, we place a bylined piece on the problem the feature solves. No product mention — just your executive making the argument. Editors learn the thesis before they see the news.

2

Launch into context

When the release goes out, the people receiving it have already read your framing. The pitch lands as the answer to a question that's live in the industry, not as another vendor announcement in a full inbox.

3

Convert to hardware

The launch and its coverage become the evidence section of an award submission. A win is third-party proof with a badge on it — the kind that shows up in decks, on booths, and in procurement conversations.

Proof — System Surveyor "Boundaries"

One feature, three news cycles, ninety days.

January 2025

The byline runs. An executive-authored piece on the underlying design problem publishes in the trade press. The product isn't mentioned.

February 4, 2025

The feature launches. The release goes to editors already holding the thesis. Coverage picks up the framing from the byline rather than the boilerplate.

April 15, 2025

It wins MVP. The launch and its coverage become the submission. The badge outlives the news cycle by years.

Capabilities

What sits underneath the engagements.

Every engagement draws on the same five disciplines. What changes between them is the mix and the emphasis — not who does the work.

01

Brand Positioning

Finding the piece of the category that's actually available to you, then making sure every surface says the same thing — site, deck, booth, and the sentence your VP of Sales uses on a call.

  • Category strategy
  • Messaging architecture
  • Competitive teardown
  • Visual identity
  • Naming

02

Public Relations & Awards

Relationships with the editors who cover these industries, an awards calendar we manage on your behalf, and submissions written to the criteria rather than pasted from a release.

  • Media relations
  • Bylined thought leadership
  • Award submissions
  • Analyst & editor briefings
  • Speaking placement
  • Crisis comms

03

Content Strategy

Content that survives technical review and still reads like a human wrote it. We work from your engineers' language, not around it — then distribute it where your buyers actually are.

  • Editorial calendars
  • Technical & solution briefs
  • Case studies
  • Video & webinars
  • Executive ghostwriting
  • Sales enablement

04

Demand Generation

Campaigns built to produce conversations your sales team wants to take. We report on qualified pipeline, and we tell you when a channel isn't earning its line item.

  • Paid search & social
  • Retargeting
  • Email nurture
  • Landing pages & CRO
  • Marketing automation
  • Attribution reporting

05

Search & Digital

Ranking for the terms integrators, IT buyers, and end users type when they're already looking — which in these categories are specific, low-volume, and far more valuable than they look in a keyword tool.

  • Technical SEO
  • Category landing pages
  • Site architecture
  • Analytics & tracking
  • Webflow build & care

06

Trade Shows & Events

The show is three days; the program is three months. Pre-show meeting demand, on-site content capture, show-daily placement, and a follow-up sequence that runs while the badges are still in people's bags.

  • Pre-show demand
  • Meeting programs
  • Booth messaging
  • Show daily & on-site press
  • Post-show follow-through

Proof

Judge us the way your customers judge you.

Three clients, three different problems, three sets of numbers we're happy to be held to.

Case 01 — Storage & surveillance

Seagate SkyHawk

29

Media placements

Plus 3 speaking engagements, 3 awards, and 11 industry roundtables — building the partnerships and press position that made SkyHawk the category's trusted surveillance storage name.

Read the case study →

Case 02 — System design software

System Surveyor

40+

Earned placements

9+ industry awards since 2023 and a fourth consecutive year on retainer — the engagement where the three-cycle engine was built and proven.

Read the case study →

Case 03 — Access control

dormakaba

1st

On the Las Vegas Strip

The first property on the Strip to offer room keys in Apple Wallet. Maize built the messaging, the launch plan, and the promotional video behind it.

Read the case study →

How we work

What the first ninety days look like.

Weeks 1–2

Immersion

Product walkthroughs with your engineers, calls with sales, and a hard look at what the category already claims. We come in knowing the industry — we still have to learn you.

Weeks 3–4

The plan

A written plan with named targets: which editors, which awards, which terms, which campaigns, on what dates. You approve it before anything ships.

Weeks 5–12

Execution

The same senior people who built the plan do the work. Weekly progress, a standing monthly working session, and direct access — not a ticket queue.

Ongoing

Compounding

Each quarter's coverage feeds the next quarter's submissions and content. The account gets more effective over time, which is the whole argument for a retainer.

Fit

We'd rather tell you now.

A short list, honestly kept. If the right column describes you, we'll say so on the call and point you somewhere better.

We're a strong fit if…

  • You make or sell B2B technology — physical security, cyber, IT, storage, networking, or the software and infrastructure around them
  • You sell through integrators, resellers, or distributors, or direct to enterprise and public-sector buyers
  • You have real product news, customer deployments, or technical depth to work with
  • You want senior people doing the work, and you're willing to be in the room for it
  • You're thinking in years, not in campaigns

We're probably not if…

  • You're selling to consumers — this is a B2B practice end to end, and the playbook doesn't transfer
  • You want a list rental and a blast, priced by the send
  • You need the cheapest option in the category rather than the one that compounds
  • The goal is volume of activity rather than a business outcome you can name
  • You're looking for a vendor to hand a brief to and not hear from again

Questions

The things people ask on the first call.

How are engagements priced?

The Positioning Sprint is fixed-fee and fixed-scope. Category Authority and Pipeline are monthly retainers scoped to the volume of work, not to a headcount formula. We put the number in writing after the briefing call, once we know what you're actually trying to move — and we'll tell you if a smaller engagement would get you there.

Who actually does the work?

The senior people you meet in the first conversation. Maize is built to stay senior, which means the person who sets your strategy is the person writing your byline and calling the editor. There's no handoff to a junior team in month three, because there isn't one.

Do we have to commit to a long contract?

No. Retainers run month to month after an initial ninety-day period, which is roughly how long it takes for the first cycle of work to show results. Our longest client is in year four — by choice, not by contract.

Can you work alongside our internal marketing team?

Most often, yes — that's the common case. Some clients use us as the whole marketing function; more use us for the category knowledge and the editor relationships their internal team can't build from scratch. We're comfortable being either the department or the specializt arm of it.

How do you measure success?

Against numbers agreed before the work starts: earned placements in named publications, award submissions and wins, speaking slots, qualified pipeline, and search position on the terms that matter. We don't report on impressions as though they were an outcome.

What kinds of companies do you work with?

Security is the deepest bench — physical, cyber, and IT — and it extends naturally to the technology companies built around it: storage, networking, infrastructure, and B2B hardware and software generally.

Look at the client list and you'll see the range. Seagate is a storage company. System Surveyor is software. dormakaba makes locks. What they have in common is a technical product, a considered purchase with a long sales cycle, and a trade press that has to be earned rather than bought. That's the work we're built for.

What do you need from us?

Access to a subject matter expert for roughly an hour a month, a named decision-maker who can approve work, and honesty about what's actually happening in the business. Engagements stall for exactly one reason: no one on the client side has time to say yes.

Start here

Twenty minutes on where your category is actually open.

Not a pitch and not a discovery call. We'll walk you through what your competitors have already claimed, what's still unclaimed, and the two or three moves we'd make first. If there's a fit, we'll say so. If there isn't, you keep the read.

Book the briefing See the case studies

No deck required. No gated download. Just the twenty minutes.