Capturing the hearts and

minds of the CISO

​How you can turn cybersecurity threats into brand opportunities
Capturing the growth
opportunity in cybersecurity
The pace of change in cybersecurity is immense.

The responsibility of cybercrime has never weighed so heavy on the board and CISO, with
emerging technologies, growing skill gaps and increased hacker sophistication leading to
increased threats. That pressure is showing too, with 96% of CISOs reported that they were
stressed at work in a recent Cynet study*.

This increased threat is leading to increased investment, and for cybersecurity

marketers, this is an opportunity to stand up and support these organisations.

Brands that strategically align their go-to-market, content and customer experience with
stand out creative and messaging will win the hearts and minds, and ultimately the
wallets, of those responsible for securing their organisations.

We’ve taken a look into a few of the growing opportunities and trends in cybersecurity over
the past few months, and provided a few examples of how we’re helping brands capture
the growing opportunity in this sector. I hope you find them informative and inspiring.

David van Schaick,

CMO

*Source: Cynet - Implications of Stress on CISOs 2023 Survey Report

 The three big security challenges for businesses
Companies are layering more systems into their IT networks to support remote work, support customer experience and generate
value – all of which create vulnerabilities. No stress
at work, 6%

1.
Increased access
to on-demand data
platforms
Mobile platforms, remote work, and
other shifts increasingly hinge on
high-speed access to ubiquitous
and large data sets, exacerbating
the likelihood of a breach.
2. 3.
Hackers launching Gaps in resources,
increasingly sophisticated knowledge, governance
attacks and talent
Today, cyber-hacking is a multibillion- Many organizations lack
dollar enterprise, complete with sufficient cybersecurity talent,
institutional hierarchies and R&D knowledge, and expertise—and
budgets. Attackers use advanced tools, the shortfall is growing.
such as artificial intelligence, machine
learning, and automation.

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 The three big opportunities for cybersecurity marketers
As investment in cybersecurity becomes an increasing priority, the opportunity increases for vendors and solutions providers. Here
are three ways cybersecurity marketers can capture that opportunity in 2023:

1.
Become a trusted partner
to your customers
Businesses and especially CISOs
need your help.
There is a great opportunity as a
vendor or service provider to offer
value to the end user by acting as
a true business partner, earning
their loyalty and NRR in return.
2.
Tell stories that win the hearts
and minds of CISOs
In a complex and crowded market,
your brand, stories and content need to
cut through.
You need to be speaking to the issues
keeping CISOs up at night and creating
brand experiences that mean they
remember you in the morning.
3.
3. Focus on earning trust
In a sector dominated by risk,
earning the trust of your audience
creates highly value brand equity.
That means showing up with
competence through expertise,
reliable digital experiences, integrity
through human touchpoints and
empathy with a customer-first
approach.

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 What’s trending in
cybersecurity?
The following data is from over 100,000 leads generated between October
2022 and March 2023, generated globally by 66 media publishers.

This data is collected through The Marketing Practice’s proprietary

account-based intelligence platform, Argus.

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Trending Security
Topics by Region EMEA
IT threats & vulnerabilities
Zero trust
Ransomware

Americas
Endpoint
Data-loss prevention
Threat prevention
Data collected from

Argus is The Marketing Practice’s proprietary

account-based intelligence platform. For more APAC
information on data bespoke to your audience,
please get in touch through our website or your Zero trust
account manager. Ransomware
IT threats & vulnerabilities

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 Financial Services

Trending Security
Zero trust
IT threats & vulnerabilities

Topics by Industry Healthcare & Pharma

Data loss prevention
IT Services
Zero trust Ransomware
Endpoint Zero trust
Threat prevention Cloud security

Data collected from

Argus is The Marketing Practice’s proprietary

account-based intelligence platform. For more
information on data bespoke to your audience,
please get in touch through our website or your
account manager.

17/10/2023 7
 Digital event

Tactics Engaged Whitepaper

Solutions briefing
With by Seniority Whitepaper
Digital event
Analyst report

Whitepaper
Whitepaper Digital event
Analyst report
Digital event Whitepaper
Thought leadership
Best practice guide Analyst report

Data collected from

Argus is The Marketing Practice’s proprietary

account-based intelligence platform. For more
information on data bespoke to your audience,
please get in touch through our website or your
account manager.
C-Level Director Manager Engineer/ Technical
Architect
17/10/2023 8
Topics by Search 🔎 Cybersecurity Search Terms
Keyword Volumes
# United States # United Kingdom # Germany # Australia

1 phishing 1 phishing 1 phishing 1 hacking

2 cybersecurity 2 malware 2 firewall 2 cybersecurity

3 identity theft 3 authentication 3 malware 3 phishing

4 firewall 4 identity theft 4 ransomware 4 firewall

5 malware 5 firewall 5 cybersecurity 5 identity theft

Data collected from 6 vulnerability 6 ransomware 6 authentication 6 malware

7 encryption 7 encryption 7 hacking 7 vulnerability

8 hacking 8 hacking 8 encryption 8 ransomware

Data collected based on keyword search volumes 9 ransomware 9 cybersecurity 9 vulnerability 9 data breach
from October 2022 to March 2023.
10 authentication 10 vulnerability 10 cybercrime 10 encryption

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 How are The Marketing Practice
helping drive growth for
cybersecurity brands?

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 Security is in our DNA.
Over two decades, our experience spans from helping
cybersecurity clients grow in a variety of ways… from
building global performance engines to creating
programs designed to win and grow key accounts.

The Marketing Practice © 17/10/2023 1

1

There are three key
considerations in
building and activating
successful campaigns for
cybersecurity clients…
The Marketing Practice © 17/10/2023
1 Target Audience:
While the CISO is important, cyber risk is everywhere
and it takes a village to fight it.
2 Messaging:
Within every village, there are very distinct “tribes”
– each having different priorities and mindsets. We
call them security-first and security-second.
3 Channels:
Beyond the obvious channels (e.g., Dark Reading), it
is important to consider non-work publications that
can reach these tribes (e.g., The Economist).
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 Five outcomes we’re driving for cybersecurity brands
With over 20 years experience and thousands of campaigns worth of data, we understand what it takes to drive growth, from
positioning and strategy through to generating awareness, demand, sales pipeline and customer expansion.

Building trust & fame
Repositioning and brand
activation to build a platform
for sustainable growth.
Accelerate demand
An orchestrated demand
engine to build and then
accelerate pipeline.
Scale ABM Grow the channel Reengineer the
Pivot to account-based Scaled channel initiatives to buyer experience
strategies to win and grow drive growth through and Story telling aligned with
key accounts. with the ecosystem. the buyer journey to
accelerate sales

$164m pipeline 613% return on pipeline Driving 20x more 358 partners recruited Building the ‘Global
revenue with a 75:1 through an account- meetings with target and onboarded driving B2B Website of the
return on ad spend based demand engine account c-level 10% revenue growth Year’
executives

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$164m pipeline revenue with a
75:1 return on ad spend
Brand and creative activation for Forcepoint

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Case Study: Forcepoint

75:1 return on ad spend

for Forcepoint
Business Challenge
Position Forcepoint as the leader in cloud security, drive
consideration for Forcepoint solutions and increase
conversion rates beyond industry standard.

What We Did
Developed detailed personas to help understand the
motivations of influencers and decision makers in the
buying process.

Developed “clarity”, the creative concept behind the

campaign featuring bisected portraits meant to
communicate the “before and after” of cybersecurity.

Built, activated and reported on a global content

marketing engine and media campaign, with assets
tailored to support the entire buyer’s journey.

The Results
• 75:1 return on ad spend
• 163% increase in pipeline
• 20% increase in inquiry to MQL rate
• Display CTR exceeded industry benchmark by 120%
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 Case study

613% return on pipeline through an

account-based demand engine
Data-driven demand generation at scale for BAE Systems

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© The Marketing Practice 2022 17
Case Study | BAE Systems

Demand engine generating 613% ROI

on pipeline value for BAE systems.
The challenge
• Audit, rebuild and activate content • Generate and qualify MQLs and MQAs
strategy to pass onto sales teams

What we’ve done

• Full content audit and buyer-journey mapping to fill gaps with new content
• Programmatic display, social and search, driving prospects to a content hub
• Content syndication through owned and paid channels
• Fed that combined data through Demandbase, Leadforensics, Marketo into Argus to
score accounts based on a bespoke scoring system.
• Qualified those MQLs and MQAs with our in-house SDR team to pass on to sales.

The results
• 613% ROI on pipeline value
• 4,206 unique accounts engaged
• 200% above industry average on
campaign CTR
• Grand Prix Winner at The Drum
Digital Advertising Awards 2020

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 Case study: BAE Systems

MQA & MQL scoring and nurture

Virtual SDR

Programmatic display

Paid Social / Search

Microsite Form Fills Priority Engine Marketo Salesforce

Microsite
Premium Display

Remarketing

Content Syndication

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© The Marketing Practice 2022 19
 Case study

Driving 20x more meetings with

target executives
Strategic ABM for Trellix

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© The Marketing Practice 2022 20
Case Study | Trellix

Driving 20x more meetings with

target executives for Trellix
The challenge
• Generate more meetings with top-level executives at target accounts
• Create a scalable and quick-to-market solution

What we’ve done

• Spun up more than 50 bespoke portals for each of Trellix target accounts, each
one featuring personalized content.
• Used advanced tracking to identify which accounts are engaged with which
content and when.
• Used that intent data to help sales teams plan their outreach and engagement so
every single conversation hit the exact right mark

The results
• 5X more engagement than the rest • 25% bigger average deal size
of baseline marketing
• ITSMA Marketing Excellence Gold
• 20X more engagement among VP Award Winner 2021
and C-Suite level executives at
Trellix target accounts.

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 Generating Demand

The Demand Engine – Delivering Scaled, Curated Stories for Specific Accounts
Digital Engagement Architecture
Completely off-site so no integration needed with existing marketing tech
Prioritize highest scoring
Marketing Qualified
1 Speed to Execute Accounts (MQAs)
Traffic: Tech & Community:
INFORM

TEST
ABM landing pages - 1st Party buyer
Sponsored email
Curated telling a specific engagements
Targeted display
curated story for the 2
Story Paid Social captured in Argus

LEARN
intended buyer

Facilitate
Questions

Creating a seamless bridge between digital and human channels

ENGAGE

TMP has end-to-end outsource capability or can overlay and enhance your internal sellers

Premium ABM Outbound Market Research / Landscaping In-House SDR Consultancy

Strategic / Complex Best Practice

Lead Gen
Multi-channel Governance
Syndication Follow Up
(Phone/Email/Social) Coaching
Skilled / Well Trained Independent Market Research Toolkits
Long-term / Trusted Advisor Survey / Talking Points Cadences
LISTEN

Modern B2B Incremental value available

engagement journey 1st Party Buyer Insight
The crucial ingredient of long-term optimisation with every interaction
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 358 partners qualified, recruited and
onboarded across 9 countries in 6 months
Partner strategy & recruitment Trend Micro

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© The Marketing Practice 2023 23
Case Study | Trend Micro

358 partners qualified, recruited and onboarded

across 9 countries in 6 months for Trend Micro
The challenge
• Partner recruitment & onboarding • Positioning as the security vendor of choice
• Revenue growth from MSP partners across the European MSP community

What we’ve done

• Identified Trend Micro’s ‘Ideal Partner Profile’ (IPP) by building a competitor map and speaking to
existing and look-a-like partners to understand firmographics, challenges, priorities and existing
awareness and perception of Trend Micro

• Built a Target Account List of EMEA MSPs based on the Ideal Partner Profile.

• Activated tele & digital outreach using four upskilled multi-language operators to qualify and
onboard partners with ongoing support.

• On-site analytics and regular reporting to feed back into Trend partner management.

The results
• 2,792 partners engaged across 9 countries • 358 partners recruited and onboarded
• 800 partners profiled

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 Building a physical immersive
experience to tell the data-driven
retail story
Splunk

17/10/2023 25
The Brief
To create a highly versatile experiential setting for
Splunk’s team to tell their ‘powered by AWS’ data
stories in a unique and engaging way.

• Create an in person memorable experience

• A platform to convey the multiple data stories

• It must be adaptable and expandable

• With no permanent additions to the buildings

structure

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Telling the Splunk story Meet
Splunk are known for security and IT, but they Dee
have so much more to offer.
…
They needed a way to demonstrate to senior
business leaders how they can facilitate
seamless experiences through data across a
range of industries and use-cases, to open up
discussions about the art of the possible.

So we put a face to a customer – Dee – and

followed her as her journey took her from
Ecomm, to in-store, to customer service and
logistics.

And all in pursuit of a highly desirable item

from the fictitious Splunk T-Shirt Company.

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The Build
Taking influence from the world of highly modular premium retail, we developed a
concept based on modular units that would lead the audience on a physical and
digital journey. The build was put together in collaboration with Island Agency.

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The Launch
The Splunk Interactive Experience has launched
at an event in Feb 2023 in front of prospects
and customers and has hit the years target for
meetings within the first two months.

---

“The Splunk Immersive Experience launch has been a

phenomenal success.

The comments and feedback have been better than

expected, with huge interest from customers and partners
alike to leverage the experience.”

Director of Industry Advisory, Splunk

“The response/feedback for launch has been

overwhelmingly positive.

We have received a few comments from the a key partner

around positioning of services and our joint messaging –
which we are working on. ”

Industry Strategist, Splunk

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 Ready to grow?
Contact dhayday@themarketingpractice.com to find out more.

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