Struggling to Rise Above the Noise in the Cybersecurity Marketplace? Five Ideas that Make a Difference

We’re sharing a three-part blog post series on how to stand out from the competition; this first post looks at how to get started with the right groundwork.

There is no question that the cybersecurity marketplace continues to grow exponentially. In fact, Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that global spending on cybersecurity products and services will exceed $1 trillion cumulatively over the five-year period from 2017 to 2021.[1]

We know that marketing in this crowded space can be challenging, but the most successful companies are finding ways to rise above the noise. It starts with building a solid foundation, so we’ve gathered five best practices to help you do just that and get heard in a crowded marketplace.

1)      Clarify Your Marketing Goals

First, understand exactly what you are trying to achieve by clarifying your marketing goals. Make sure they are attainable and relate to the corporate goals.

For example, is your company trying to reach certain revenue targets, acquire companies, expand into new sectors, or attract investors, among other things? If one of the company goals is to get VC money or issue an IPO, then one of your marketing goals must be to raise the visibility of the company with potential investors.

2)      Know Your Customer

Second, have a very clear idea exactly who you are marketing to. This includes your target markets (industry sectors, geographies, company size), accounts (specific named companies), and personas for buyers, users, and influencers.

In terms of personas, what level of seniority, titles, and departments are you targeting? What are their demographics? Without this information, you will have a hard time targeting your marketing campaigns to the right audiences. As well, research shows that gender, age, location, and other characteristics all affect how people prefer to be marketed to, making this information important to know.

• Our buyers are CISOs at mid-market North American credit unions, typically men, 45-65 years old.
• Our users are IT analysts at large, geographically distributed healthcare organizations in the Southwest of the United States, typically men, 25-40 years old.
• Our influencers are COOs and CFOs at EU value-added resellers, split 60-40 between women and men, typically 40-65 years of age.

3)      Understand Your Value Prop

Third, know how your company serves its various audiences and what the value proposition is for each one of them. For each audience, describe their problem, how your company or product solves that problem, and the benefits they derive.

Make sure these messages are at the center of all your go-to-market programs. Here are some examples:

• For financial services CISOs in the United States struggling to reduce the attack surface, our company is the only one to use AI to lock down all devices and apps with critical vulnerabilities, proactively mitigating risk without extra cost or personnel.
• For MSSP partners in the EU looking to secure their clients’ cloud-based data centers, our solution is the first to offer visibility into East-West traffic, enabling their clients to see more and secure more, and enabling them to expand their service offerings and recurring revenue streams.

4)      Choose the Right Strategy

Fourth, make sure you are going to market with the right strategy. Because no one markets in a vacuum, understanding the landscape in which you are competing will help you most successfully position your company and its products and services. To do that, you’ll want to have situational awareness by gaining a handle on your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as well as those of your competitors. For example, you might capitalize on the fact that you’re less expensive than the competition.

Next, figure out what approach you’ll take:

• If you have one product and a set of buyers for the same product, you will undertake mass marketing.
• If you serve different audiences with different products, you’ll be doing segmented marketing.
• If you are targeting only specific companies or industries, that’s account-based marketing or industry marketing, respectively.

Then, think about how you’ll differentiate your offering:

• Product differentiation (first/best/only/faster/better)
• Service differentiation (high-touch customer service)
• Price differentiation (premium or cheaper)

Finally, combine all of the information we’ve covered so far in this blog post, which essentially creates your strategy. For example:

• We’ll market to the CISOs of U.S.-based healthcare organizations (segmented marketing) via product differentiation (our solution is the first and best of its kind), with multi-touch, multi-offer, multi-channel programs in order to generate a 10% increase in revenue.
• We’ll undertake account-based marketing to the CFOs of the top 100 financial services companies worldwide with a service differentiation (premier pricing) via full-funnel, targeted digital advertising to increase customer installed base by 5% this year.

5)      Partner with Experts

We know there’s a lot to get right and sometimes that path does not seem as clear or simple as the examples above. That’s usually when high-performing companies turn to the experts to help guide them through the thicket of options and opportunities.

There are lots of marketing agencies, but not many of them have extensive cybersecurity experience, full-funnel marketing knowledge, and a deeply experienced team. You’ll want to make sure the partner you choose has those capabilities. In addition, look for one that’s easy to work with and committed to exceeding your expectations.

Next Steps

Rising above the noise and getting heard in a crowded marketplace starts with getting clear on goals, customers, value propositions, strategy, and finding the right marketing partner to help.

We’d love to show you how AimPoint Group’s expertise and experience can help drive value for your business! Contact us today for a free strategy session; together we’ll look at your needs and map the best path forward.

[1] https://cybersecurityventures.com/cybersecurity-almanac-2019/