Date
21st November 2023
Cybersecurity marketing is complex, right?
Not only do you have to sell your business's products and services, you also have a duty to educate people about emerging technologies, and battle with an increasing number of competitors in the sector.
Luckily, quality shines through, and it's quality cybersecurity lead generation and marketing that will help you reach your targets and see a good ROI on your investment in marketing. Read on to find out how!
In this Ultimate Guide to Cybersecurity Marketing 2024, we'll cover:
- The state of the cybersecurity industry in 2024.
- Challenges for cybersecurity marketers.
- How to create a cybersecurity marketing strategy.
- The best B2B lead generation for cybersecurity companies.
- How to choose a cybersecurity marketing agency.
Why Is Cybersecurity Marketing Important?
B2B cybersecurity is a huge, notorious sector: complex and ever changing. Everybody in business needs cybersecurity, but positioning your solution as the best of the many options available is where it gets complicated.
As well as the competition, as a cybersecurity marketer, it can be tricky to convey to customers and potential customers the threats they might face from lack of security.
Modern technology users tend to take their cyber safety for granted, assuming their systems are up to date and lacking knowledge about new methods of phishing, new ransomware models and DDoS attacks that have made their old systems obsolete.
Reaching those businesses in need, and educating and informing them, is a major component of B2B lead generation for cybersecurity.
How to Create Your Cybersecurity Marketing Strategy (& Drive ROI!)
Goal posts for cybersecurity marketing are continually changing. Sound familiar?
Well it’s no surprise, given the cybersecurity industry is continually changing too. It's growing, for a start: revenue passed $173.5bn in 2022 and is forecast to grow to $266.2bn by the end of 2027.
Growth in the market has been down to both rising digitilization and increased cyber crime. There are more data breaches, and increasingly sophisticated target-based cyber attacks. Meanwhile, more employees are working from home, which means cybersecurity companies must meet the challenge of making disparate technologies work together. There's a lot to deal with.
Therefore, your cybersecurity marketing strategy also needs to adapt to meet the changing needs of a cybersecurity-conscious audience. And with all that change it can be challenging to create and implement an effective, ROI-driving cybersecurity marketing strategy.
Effective cybersecurity marketing involves several different cybersecurity marketing tactics, including:
- B2B lead generation for cybersecurity
- Content marketing and content syndication
- Account-based marketing (ABM) strategies
- Programmatic display advertising
We’ll explore each of these in this ultimate guide to cybersecurity marketing below.
The Cybersecurity Market
Before we look at each cybersecurity marketing strategy in more detail, it’s important to set the scene and reflect on the cybersecurity market.
Since the pandemic, use of the cloud, employees working from home and disparate technologies needing to work together have all increased, meaning new and greater challenges in the cybersecurity sector.
According to Databasix, phishing attacks increased by 600% after the start of the pandemic, while a survey found that 44% of businesses offered their employees no training for cybersecurity when working from home.
Meanwhile, Gartner has named attack surface expansion, supply chain risk, and identity threat detection and response as the biggest trends in cybersecurity.
On top of these cybersecurity trends, communicating the changes in technology to cybersecurity buyers is harder than ever. How can you convince a small B2B company that their entire network could be wiped out with just a single sophisticated phishing scam, or that they could lose tens of thousands of dollars through a ransomware attack?
As a cybersecurity marketer, you know the challenges to modern business security your equipment and software is built to combat. The cybersecurity professionals you need to reach don't necessarily know all the rising threats: keeping them up to date, and showing them there's a need for your product, becomes part of your remit.
5 Reasons Why Cybersecurity Marketing Is So Challenging
Reaching cybersecurity decision-makers can be challenging for several reasons:
1. Limited time and attention.
In a growing market, with lots of competition, and continual developments in the industry, cybersecurity professionals require both trusted resources and carefully targeted, continuous marketing to ensure they stay educated in the sector.
2. Distrust/data privacy concerns.
Security-conscious audiences are particularly wary of which businesses are contacting them, and who's handling their data. The need to be transparent is paramount, and if you're using a cybersecurity lead generation agency, it must be absolutely see-through in the way it handles customer data.
3. Complex buying processes.
The cybersecurity needs of a business are not usually handled by just one person. So who within the business are you actually trying to reach? The CEO? Middle management? The IT department? Multiple people will be involved.
4. Technical focus.
Many cybersecurity decision-makers are technical professionals who may be more focused on technical specifications and details than on marketing messages. Marketers need to be able to communicate the value of their products in terms that are relevant and meaningful to these technical audiences.
5. In contract, a lack of technical focus!
On the other hand, lots of the people who manage cybersecurity in businesses aren't actually experts, but managing directors and office managers – particularly in the SME sector. You have to ensure your marketing is accessible to all.
What Cybersecurity Marketing Strategies Are the Most Effective?
In our experienced, the most effective methods of marketing and lead generation for cybersecurity companies are those that:
- Take a very focused approach to building and reaching target audiences.
- Use internally-generated content to reach those audiences.
Below are some of our favorite cybersecurity marketing strategies to help you reach the right cybersecurity decision-makers.
1. Cybersecurity Content Marketing
Cybersecurity audiences need to keep up to date. With a lot of regulations to follow, new threats emerging, and new technologies being brought out to combat them, educational content is key.
This is where content marketing comes in for cybersecurity marketers. According to Demand Metric, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing, but generates three times as many leads.
It’s become even more vital since the pandemic, as businesses have recognized the need to step up their cybersecurity game and are more likely to seek information about it. According to LinkedIn, there was a 95% increase in cybersecurity content engagement in the first year of the pandemic, even without a significant increase in actual content.
Content marketing counts as both a cybersecurity demand generation tool (raising awareness of your brand), and a B2B lead generation tool (attracting prospects into your marketing funnel). It's a trending topic in marketing at the moment: demand generation vs lead generation? Demand generation relies heavily on using content to raise awareness of your brand, but this is also a really useful tool for lead generation.
Generally, slightly different types of content are used for demand generation and lead generation. Demand gen tends to include tactics like blogs, social media posts and videos – usually ungated – whereas lead generation comes further down the marketing funnel, allowing you to attract cybersecurity leads with gated whitepapers, research reports, case studies and eBooks.
And for those, you should think about...
2. Content Syndication Lead Generation
Content syndication works well as B2B lead generation for cybersecurity companies because it allows you to find a bigger and more targeted audience for your whitepapers, eBooks and case studies.
When cybersecurity professionals are looking for educational content, they often rely on content syndication platforms aimed at their sector.
These content libraries allow them to easily find whitepapers for purchasing research – and the lead generation agency that owns the content library gets their content details in return, and tracks their activity, to deliver strong leads to their clients.
You can enhance a content syndication campaign to get the best ROI. For example, you can:
- Ensure every lead has downloaded at least two pieces of content.
- Get the lead generation company to assess each lead's budget, need and timeframe.
- Include extra questions on your content download form, such as business size or when they last updated their security software.
3. Account Based Marketing
Cybersecurity marketing usually has to reach several individuals within a business, such as technical engineering and IT personnel. It also requires intensive research into which businesses need cybersecurity.
For these two reasons, ABM is really good for cybersecurity lead generation. With this approach, you target your lead generation only towards a set list of businesses, and various people within them, that are most likely to be lucrative as clients.
An ABM lead generation strategy starts with a target account list (TAL) of businesses. Under each of these businesses, it usually includes a number of different individuals to contact – CEO, managing director, head of finance, head of security, office manager, etc.
You can then research exactly what these businesses are likely to need, and how you can serve them – and fine-tune your messaging to make it more likely to resonate with each individual you contact.
4. Surround-Sound Messaging
You can combine your lead generation campaigns with display advertising, which increases your brand awareness during a cybersecurity lead gen campaign.
A good cybersecurity lead generation agency will be able to place your advertising on relevant websites using programmatic advertising, so new leads are more likely to see your ad when they're browsing, which gives you the 'surround-sound' effect.
B2B display ads are a fantastic advertising method for B2B businesses because they are finely-tuned towards your target audience. Display ads are a great example of demand generation, increasing the likelihood your brand will be noticed, and good cybersecurity lead generation companies are able to support ad campaigns with full digital monitoring and metrics.
Cybersecurity Lead Generation – How to Generate High-Quality Leads in 2024
Although lead generation seems to have developed a bit of a bad rep over years, if you choose to work with a transparent lead generation supplier the results will speak for themselves.
Take a look at our Quality Lead Generation Checklist to help you when choosing a suitable lead generation agency.
‘Cheap’ or low cost leads are a false economy. You may well spend less on your initial campaign but when your leads don’t convert you’ll be missing a trick. So let’s explore five key cybersecurity lead generation strategies to help you reach the niche cybersecurity audiences you need.
Cybersecurity Lead Generation Challenges:
Cybersecurity lead generation often requires support from an external specialist. Reaching the right cybersecurity decision-makers can be challenging due to:
1. Knowing Who to Target: Large tech companies are set up differently, making it hard to know which cybersecurity job titles to target.
2. Multiple Decision-Makers: Again, decision-makers and influencers can vary greatly per company and stretch across multiple departments, such as IT, Finance, Marketing and even HR depending on your tech solutions.
3. Quality Lead Generation: Finding a B2B cybersecurity lead generation supplier with the capabilities to generate high-quality, relevant leads can be tricky. You need to choose a cybersecurity marketing agency who is trustworthy and transparent about their lead generation process. So many suppliers outsource their campaigns to 3rd parties and buy leads from unknown sources. We don’t like those suppliers, and neither should you!
5 Key Cybersecurity Lead Generation Strategies:
1. Share your content far and wide
Share your own unique knowledge, customer case studies, how-it-works guides and industry trend reports to capture new leads. Use a combination of gated and ungated content for the biggest reach, and use content syndication for precise, ROI-friendly lead generation.
2. Choose your targets.
Use ABM and make a TAL of your most likely prospects, including a cross-section of personnel to target within each account. Build your TAL by using a cybersecurity marketing agency to create lookalike audiences, and devise messaging to resonate with different levels of decision-makers.
3. Boost your message with paid advertising.
Combine your lead generation with ads – either pay-per-click adverts on Google, or display advertising via your lead generation agency, to ensure your brand is recognizable to cybersecurity leads and warm them up in your marketing funnel.
4. Nurture your leads.
Keep using content, via email, social media and 3rd party content syndication platforms, to ensure your leads stay warm to your brand and solutions.
5. Note their intent.
Use lead scoring, intent data targeting and BANT targeting techniques to understand how 'warm' your marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are, and when they're ready to transfer to your sales team as sales qualified leads (SQLs).
How to Choose the Right Cybersecurity Marketing Agency
Choosing a B2B cybersecurity marketing agency relies on assessing how well they can reach and engage with potential audiences.
Organic and social media reach only goes so far: a technology specialist lead generation agency will be able to help you find new, relevant audiences, including in different sectors and different countries.
We recommend using a lead generation agency with a specialism in technology, as well as cybersecurity, to help you reach the parts of your audience that are working in the technical and IT departments of their companies.
Cybersecurity marketing has become more expensive in the last few years: thanks to the growth of the industry, there's more competition, so cost-per-click advertising and cost per lead (CPL) lead generation prices have gone up. You need to be sure you're getting value for money.
Lastly but most importantly, make sure they’re legit! They should be able to share the entire lead generation process with you from the lead’s perspective.
B2B Lead Generation For Cybersecurity – Getting Started
Before reaching out to a B2B cybersecurity marketing agency, have you aligned your marketing, sales and customer service teams?
There's lots of evidence that RevOps teams working closely together boosts your bottom line, and it's hard to create a cohesive ABM strategy, or decide on whitepaper content, without input from your other teams.
The next stage is to produce content to lure prospects. Aim to have a good mix of unique, useful whitepapers and research reports for gated lead generation, and lighter blog-like content for demand generation.
With a good idea of which cybersecurity lead generation services you want to try, now's the time to find a reputable B2B lead generation agency, who will help you hone your strategy and put your content in front of the audiences that need it.
By feeding the education needs of this unique sector, you can draw attention to yourself as a useful mine of cybersecurity information – and a fantastic cybersecurity solution provider.
Ready to learn more about what makes a great B2B cybersecurity lead generation company? Read our ungated Complete Guide to Technology Lead Generation, or download our FREE 2024 lead generation planning toolkit today!
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