Are you in the cybersecurity niche? Do you struggle to connect with hard-to-find customers drowned in endless threat alerts? Does your expertise feel invisible to overworked leaders desperate for strategic guidance?
You're not alone! Today's fragmented security buyers tuned out to constant product pitches are tough to reach. But with the proper positioning across key channels, you can become their trusted advisor.
In this post, we'll explore why cybersecurity customers seem to vanish, where they actually congregate, and how to engage them with value over promotion.
Why Cybersecurity Buyers Are So Elusive
Before we dive into tactics, it's essential to understand what makes cybersecurity buyers unique. There are a few key reasons they seem to vanish from view:
They're Spread Across Roles and Departments
Cybersecurity purchases involve many stakeholders. There are those in IT, security, compliance, legal, and finance—and they all have a seat at the table. Each role cares about different things, too. IT looks at functionality and integration, legal focuses on liability and risk, and finance weighs cost and ROI.
With buyers scattered across silos, it's hard to reach the entire decision-making group with any one message or channel. With no consolidated view of the potential customer base, they seem elusive.
They Only Engage When Necessary
Cybersecurity buyers don't go looking for solutions when all is quiet. They are busy with other priorities and only research options when alerted to vulnerabilities, breaches, or compliance gaps by events. The time between these triggering events that spur action is unpredictable. So, long periods of inactivity may be punctuated by urgent buying needs around sudden threats or audit findings.
They Don't Trust Bold Claims
Cybersecurity buyers have specialized knowledge and high standards. They aren't swayed by flashy advertising of shiny new tools. Bold claims of silver bullet problem-solving in this complex arena will set off alarm bells about credibility. They rely more on peer insights and independent research.
They Care More About Agility and Strategy Than Products
Cybersecurity leaders in regulated industries rarely have the luxury of ripping out and replacing systems. They focus on getting the most ROI from existing investments by improving processes, detection capabilities, and response agility. They care more about partnerships and advisory than vendor features. So, they tune out typical product marketing pitches.
Now that you know why this target audience can seem so mysterious, let's talk about where to find them and how to engage them.
Where Cybersecurity Decision-Makers Gather
To connect with constantly shifting groups of stakeholders across disparate companies, you need an omnichannel approach. The first step is identifying the right digital and offline gathering places for cybersecurity leaders.
Here are five channels primed for connecting with cybersecurity buyers:
Industry Events and Conferences
In-person events may seem old school, but they remain vital venues for networking within specialized industries. Identify the significant conferences for your verticals like healthcare, finance, insurance, retail, etc, and get your brand visible. Sponsor booths, speak on panels, host dinners, or across conference meetups. Interact face-to-face with the very people who will issue RFPs down the line.
Cybersecurity SEO and Semantic Keyword Targeting
With stakeholders across quite a few different roles searching for answers online, search engine real estate is vital. You must ensure you appear prominently when buyers seek out issues your brand solves.
This is where cybersecurity SEO comes in—optimizing your content for the specialized search terms and topics that security leaders inquire about.
Using semantic keyword tools, identify relevant long-tail keywords and conversation phrases, and then build content around areas where you feel you have the most expertise. The goal is to appear at the top of the SERPs when industry tech leaders, strategists, auditors, and compliance officers search for security answers online.
The focus should be on informing, advising, and enabling security-focused roles rather than directly selling. Provide so much value via search that your brand becomes their go-to resource for advice and insights.
Associations and Member Groups
Join industry associations like ISSA, ISACA, InfraGard, FS-ISAC, the Health Information Trust Alliance, and OWASP and get to know their members. These folks are dealing with cybersecurity strategy and compliance issues daily. Build mindshare by speaking at local chapter events, hosting webinars for association members, or sponsoring newsletters.
Industry Publications and Podcasts
Publishing helpful articles in trusted industry publications raises your brand's credibility and authority. And promotes content offers like guides, templates, or tools. Identify where your buyers turn to stay updated, wherever that may be.
Look for options to contribute articles, write white papers for special reports, or become a go-to podcast guest on relevant topics. This is where an effective cyber PR strategy comes in handy. Savvy B2B brands increasingly invest in cyber PR to build industry relationships with reporters, analysts, and publishers.
This expands reach to buyer audiences and multiplies the impact of thought leadership. Over time, earned placements through cyber PR greatly expand inbound traffic from target segments while organically boosting brand awareness and preference.
LinkedIn Groups and Forums
LinkedIn is the digital gathering place for all sorts of professionals. Seek and engage with the right niche groups focused on cybersecurity, risk management, governance, and industry-specific IT security. You'll find communities of tens or hundreds of thousands of relevant members actively discussing the latest challenges and solutions.
Participate in these groups by raising issues happening across your customers and prospects. Share your insights and new approaches you're seeing. Answer queries from members and provide recommendations or tips where you have expertise. Build relationships with engaged group participants by delivering value-driven perspectives and advice before making any sales pitches. Become a trusted voice.
Connect Through Advisory and Insights
Once you've identified channels where your customers congregate, crafting the right messages and positioning to foster engagement over promotion is time.
Instead of traditional product-led marketing that touts benefits and superiority, take an advisory approach built on insights and enablement.
Lead with Empathy
Cybersecurity leaders have crushing responsibilities. They manage enterprise-wide vulnerability programs affecting thousands while reporting to boards demanding assurances. They prepare organizations to handle uncertain but inevitable crisis scenarios.
They worry endlessly about data, assets, reputations, and livelihoods under their protection, as well as the safety of people relying on technology.
Lead with empathy about the burden of the roles you are targeting. Show you understand the stress they face balancing mitigation costs and risk. Demonstrate respect for the specialized skill sets required for their jobs vs. treating them like check signers only.
Position your brand as a vendor and a strategic partner invested in helping enterprise security executives succeed in measurable ways.
Provide Practical Guidance
Avoid jargon-filled pitches focused on your technical add-ons and patented algorithms. Instead, provide practical guidance to common strategic and organizational problems. Show you the broader responsibilities and concerns via articles, templates, videos, and guides that offer actionable direction.
For example, a managed security service provider (MSSP) could create an eBook on quantifying third-party risk, or a virtual CISO firm could offer a template for a SOC maturity roadmap. The focus should be on enabling better performance of complex jobs vs. just selling your stuff.
Promote Peer Insights
Enable cybersecurity leaders to learn from each other. Develop or sponsor peer discussion groups, advisory councils, and community Q&A forums. Share aggregated challenges and best practices without direct self-promotion. Position your brand as the facilitator, making valuable connections and spreading insights. This earns trust and referrals.
One powerful way to do this is by organizing local or regional roundtables for cybersecurity executives in specific industries. For example, bring together Chiefs Information Security Officers from the top healthcare networks in a metro area for an intimate discussion over dinner.
Or host a breakfast panel for retail cyber leaders in a given region to share off the record about breach response best practices. Appointing an independent facilitator allows for the candid sharing of common pain points, successful strategies, and potential solutions without an overt sales angle. Send a post-event summary of key takeaways to keep wisdom spreading. This establishes your commitment to enabling vital peer learning while subtly elevating your brand as a trusted partner.
Fund Ongoing Education
Staying current is a constant requirement in the dynamic realm of cyber defense. Fund and promote access to ongoing education that keeps leaders informed and better capable of advancing security controls.
Examples include video series, certification courses, virtual workshops, and more. Enable capability building beyond compliance checklists to build loyalty.
The key to all content and engagement is speaking to outcomes, not features. And guiding teams beset by ever-expanding complexity vs just announcing new tools.
Measure Connection Over Conversion
With cybersecurity buyers, you must start relationships before sales conversations. Initial conversion metrics like demo requests, contact form fills, or free trial signups may be infrequent or lag way behind first engagements.
Instead, track intermediate progress through metrics like:
- Email list signups from gated assets
- Social shares and mentions
- Link clicks from publications
- Content downloads
- Event session participation
- Forum/community interactions
These demonstrate you are tapping into the right conversations. Nurture connections through valuable advice and insight sharing consistently over time. When needs arise or changes occur, your brand will be at the top of your mind for personalized follow-up at the right moment. Over time, as familiarity and trust build, conversions will come.
Final Word
Reaching cybersecurity buyers relies less on conventional features marketing and more on cultivating relationships across channels before needs emerge. It requires showing up with empathy, insight, and enablement wherever innovators, strategists, and operations leaders congregate.
But the effort is well worth it. Helping those tasked with monumental risk management roles produce better outcomes pays back in customer loyalty and powerful referrals. When you become a trusted advisor guiding cybersecurity strategy, you earn business over the long term.
