At the 2024 CyberMarketingCon this December, the industry’s best GTM leaders and doers spoke candidly to the challenges and opportunities in today’s landscape. In response to rising threats from cyberattacks, the cybersecurity industry saw an unprecedented number of new innovations in 2024. And despite most companies facing tight budgets, these incidents have strengthened understanding that cybersecurity is worth the investment.
One thing all the panelists agreed on? Security spending is not going down. In fact, many buyers are ready to improve their security posture – and many came looking to buy after experiencing a cyber incident. But in today’s crowded market, standing out among the crowd in that critical moment when buyers are making purchasing decisions is one of the greatest hurdles for cyber marketers today. Here’s what they had to say.
The Landscape for Cyber Marketers Has Shifted
- Brand has become everything: The cybersecurity market today is loud. New brands with niche offerings are cropping up everywhere, and everyone is promising “the best.” This means a strong brand that resonates with buyers is more important than ever. Your audience must know who you are, what you do, why you’re different, and why you matter now.
- Budgets are slimming down: Though companies are looking to spend more on cyber products and platforms, cyber marketers are facing slimming budgets. Paired with a constantly shifting market, these leaders have to be crafty, agile and adaptable. They must lean into tools and strategies that help with efficiency. For example, AI can enhance – not replace – marketing efforts, and help with the constant evolution of marketing in the digital era.
- Tech media focus has shifted: Newsrooms have shrunk exponentially in the past decade, and trads reporters have shifted mediums – many now putting time into podcasts – and zeroed in on emerging topics for ITSec audiences, including ransomware and network security. Marketers must align their storytelling with PR to meet the needs of the new media world.
All this, not to mention that marketing responsibilities in general have expanded greatly, encompassing the entire customer cycle. This spans from initiating customer interaction, creating funnel awareness, building a relationship during the buyer’s journey, to ensuring retention post-sale. Marketing has gotten a lot harder, especially in cybersecurity.
Related Read: Breaking Through the Noise with Timely Cybersecurity Storytelling
But cyber marketers can meet these challenges head-on. The sessions at CyberMarketingCon emphasized that the marketing tool bench has kept pace, and there are a lot of ways to wisely invest time and money in 2025 to find the success you’re after. Keep reading actionable cyber marketing tips to help you stay ahead of the curve.
The Most Important Cyber Marketing Trends to Follow in 2025
Experiment with AI: The best way to stop fearing AI is to use it. Marketing teams will be expected to use AI tools for efficiency purposes, so make sure you’re staying on top of your AI skills. But take this time to really embrace it. While AI shouldn’t be used to create net-new materials, it’s a great soundboard for ideation and expansion. Take the time to see where AI works for you and be a leader when it comes to integrating it into your marketing practices.
Engage with influencers (on their terms): As a marketer, you can’t pretend you understand cybersecurity at the same level as a cybersecurity influencer – so don’t. These influencers have a proven understanding and hands on experience with the pain points, workflows and other elements of cybersecurity tools. Putting budget towards influencers can help you to better target the right buyers in a relatable and authentic way.
Partner with your threat research: We know that threat research and reports provide massive long-term value for marketing teams, especially as it comes to brand awareness. But it’s to your advantage to build a good rapport with your threat research time to get the most out of the relationship. Respect their boundaries, understand when they want to be behind the scenes, and eventually work together to build ideas for research ahead of time. Most importantly, understand that for you it’s about content and for them it’s about integrity – so don’t do anything to jeopardize the true meaning of their findings.
Shift to emotion-based messaging: People don’t like to be sold to, so your brand story needs to resonate with your buyers in an impactful way. For cyber folks, the point of most emotion is typically in an incident response situation. Craft your messaging to appeal to helping them through this experience. Prove that you’re not a vendor to manage, but a support system that helps them at the most critical point in their jobs.
Related Read: Cybersecurity Perspective: The Convergence of the CISO and CMO
2025 Is Coming into Focus
The industry predictions for the 2025 cybersecurity landscape have already taken shape, with suggestions that providers will zero in on bundling services, large providers will further a shift towards platform strategies, and tech-giants will be hungry for M&A. Most companies will trend towards the same market movements, and that means it’s an essential time for marketing to find their standout strategies.
The lessons learned from this year’s CyberMarketingCon can help make all the difference. Cheers to all who attended, and we’ll see you there again next year!
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