The changes that 2020 brought about in the world of security are hard to miss. With many businesses turning to remote technology and 5G to keep productivity levels high, the reliance on cybersecurity has never been more critical.
With the industry predicted to reach $170.4 billion in 2022, it’s no wonder the topic is on everyone’s lips at the moment - but it doesn’t come without its problems.
In the most recent episode of our CopyHouse TechTalks webinar series, Managing Director of CopyHouse, Tom Barter, the Marketing Director of HAUD, and Blair Cameron, the Principal of The Risk Partnership, discuss the use of responsive marketing cybersecurity for commercial benefit and audience engagement.
There is a tendency for people only to take action after an issue has occurred. This retrospective behaviour tends to come up frequently in the world of cybersecurity; an industry that many still consider being a bit of a ‘dark art’. Although the topic is moving upwards in the list of priorities, often it takes a negative event for people to react and realise that breaches can happen to them.
Many organisations don’t fully understand their vulnerabilities and weaknesses when it comes to security. There tends to be stigma around this topic, so education is the best place to start when it comes to helping businesses feel confident in making security decisions.
Good content marketing is all about creating conversations that are relatable - essentially, you want to provide those affected by cybersecurity within an organisation, such as the IT department, with ammo to have discussions with the decision makers and get the ball rolling on making improvements. It’s all about focusing on the positives of cyber security and ensuring issues are not being pushed further and further down the line of priority.
One of the main issues that cyber firms face is how to get information over to their audience in a way that resonates. To make this more difficult, different people respond to different messages, and understanding what your target audience is interested in can be a challenge.
Customer avatars can be really useful in defining the needs of different audiences, however many businesses believe that these aren’t as relevant when it comes to B2B marketing. The truth is, no matter who you’re marketing to, it’s always a human at the other end with their own thoughts, feelings and priorities. Connecting with them on a human level with your messaging is absolutely key. That’s why customer avatars work even in the B2B sector.
One of the best ways of keeping your audience engaged is by talking about the benefits of your services and how it can help businesses, rather than talking about their features. Whilst the nuances and complexities of a service are important to you, in all likelihood your audience just want to know how it can help them to resolve an issue. In this case, how your cybersecurity product or service can help them protect their data from cyber attacks.
Thought leadership pieces are key to helping audiences understand complex topics. They allow you to expand on different themes and use relatable examples of how issues can arise and how you can prevent them from happening.
As mentioned above, one of the main issues with the cybersecurity industry is people’s reluctance to talk about security issues that they’ve experienced for fear of coming across as unsafe to their customers.
Many companies will only hit the news once there’s been a security breach, and the worst thing you can do is react by showing the stage that would have never happened if they had invested in your services.Hindsight is 20/20, but this is an incredibly negative way of advertising your business. Take the time to understand what your strengths are as a company and use these to build your brand messaging from there, rather than reacting to someone’s misfortune.
From a content marketing perspective, it’s really important to get your communication out early - before an issue has occurred. Most problems occur either because someone in an organisation did something they shouldn’t have, or didn’t do something they should have. There is very little marketing out there at the moment that is targeting these issues - how to support staff to know what they should be doing or what they shouldn’t. Marketing is often the first touchpoint that any business will have with you, so you need to make sure the messaging is well targeted.
Building your reputation with an organisation before any security issues occur puts you in the ideal position for being seen as the expert. You can even market yourself as an additional line of support, rather than the be-all and end-all solution to their problems.
One of the trickiest areas of selling cybersecurity solutions is companies' reluctance to talk openly about issues they’ve had. This makes it especially hard to get branded case studies and testimonials, or to advertise brands you’ve worked with in your marketing materials. For an industry that often relies on discretion, this can be quite a big barrier when it comes to promotion and trust building.
While many people focus on the brand behind the case study, the key thing is actually the story that you’re telling. The narrative should be about what the issue was, how you solved it and what the results were, but this needs to be written in a way that allows the reader to see themselves in the story. The more they can relate to it, the more likely they are to act.
Another important thing to note about the cybersecurity industry is that it’s a very close community, and referrals are common. One thing that may be beneficial is to look into building a referral strategy for your business, or creating a community of your own to promote cross collaboration across different areas.
Bringing communities together and sparking discussions is a great way to promote yourself to your audience as it helps to position you as a thought leader and someone worth listening to.
Ultimately, it’s all about being a proactive voice in the market, rather than reactive.
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