By Florie Lhuillier, Head of Cybersecurity, CCGroup
Working in the cybersecurity industry is like training for a marathon constantly. At the start, you are anxious but excited to launch yourself into something new. Then soon the challenge of what you have set out to do becomes crystal clear.
There are not many people you can rely on to do this but yourself, the increasing threat of picking up niggles and injuries is very real and external factors such as bad weather and heat are putting roadblocks into your training.
You also keep seeing more and more runners signing up for the same event, making your goal of standing out and finishing in the top 10% even more difficult.
The reality for today’s cybersecurity professionals can feel just as relentless. The talent shortage is worsening, geopolitical events and new technologies such as AI are making cyberattacks more likely and increasingly sophisticated while global economic uncertainty continues, and new cybersecurity startups are emerging.
These cybersecurity marketing trends are making the role of those tasked with promoting solutions extremely challenging, leading them to rethink their strategies. Let’s take a closer look.
The Skills Shortage is Real
According to this report, both UK and US enterprises that reported a decrease in investment last year stated talent shortages as the main reason. Recent research by the UK government also found that 50% of all UK businesses have a basic cybersecurity skills gap and over 160,000 cybersecurity jobs were posted in 2023—an increase of 30% from 2022.
The skills gap in the industry is real and will only continue to increase unless organizational resources are redirected to the security department for support or companies develop talent from within and upskill their employees through proper training.
The Cyberattack Surface is Expanding
The economic downturn and geopolitical conflicts that the world is experiencing are also driving an expansion of the attack surface. Pro-Russian hackers are launching cyberattacks with political motives on Western infrastructure while cybercrime groups are ramping up their efforts and knocking on more doors, particularly those from smaller organizations. They need to make money too and even more so during a turbulent economic situation.
Technological advances such as Generative AI are another reason behind increasing cyberattacks. From business email compromise attacks and malicious chatbots to deepfake phishing, the creation and proliferation of AI-driven hacker tools like WormGPT and FraudGPT are lowering the barrier for entry and democratizing the execution of different types of attacks. This is making the need for enterprises to keep up with threats even more important.
Significant Investments are Made But Challenges Remain
Despite the world entering what experts have called a “polycrisis” (inflation, climate change, the war in Ukraine), the market for cybersecurity products remains buoyant – at least, at first glance. The same report mentioned above shows 78% of enterprises in the US and 58% in the UK have increased their investments in the last year.
Meanwhile, 81% of enterprises overall are looking to work with new cybersecurity technology suppliers in the next 12 months. Enterprises are also identifying gaps in their existing cybersecurity solutions and looking for vendors that can better address their needs, particularly in the endpoint security, application security, and fraud prevention space.
Looking ahead, however, 37% of US enterprises expect to see a cut in the next 12 months. Similarly, 24% of UK enterprises are set to reduce their spending. The main reason on both sides of the pond is that the change is in line with their revenues.
This means that cybersecurity vendors will need to double down on their sales and marketing efforts and emphasize the uniqueness and cost-effectiveness of their offering even more if they want to get on their buyers’ radar.
The Provider Landscape is Changing
Finally, the proliferation of attacks, causing trillions of dollars of damage every year, is also making cybersecurity a big market opportunity to seize. Analyst firm Gartner predicts that the end-user spending for the information security and risk management market will reach $267.3 billion in 2026.
According to IT-Harvest, there are more than 3,740 cybersecurity vendors in the world and new startups being created every day that want a piece of the pie, making the provider landscape extremely competitive and dynamic.
All these factors mean cybersecurity vendors need to reappraise their marketing efforts to engage and help enterprises deal with a growing skills gap, manage cybersecurity threats, and limit, if not eliminate, their exposure to risk ensuring business resiliency.
Adapting Cybersecurity Marketing Strategies
To do this, marketing teams need to analyze, adjust and adapt what they do regularly, to what’s happening in the market – from their overall strategy to new technologies, tools and trends.
To go back to the running analogy, anyone’s marathon training can never be perfect, bumps in the road are part of the journey. However, what’s important is not what’s going to happen, if you are going to get injured or not or finish a run, but how you react to it and what you learn from it.
As a marketer, you need to first identify where you want to be in 12- or 24-months’ time and where you are right now. Do you want to build awareness or improve your conversion rate of RFPs? Is your current channel and content strategy aligned with this goal? What you need is to take the time to sit down, ideally with a third party like a coach, and analyze what you’ve done (or not done) and what you could have done better.
Much like when a race, despite all the training, didn’t go to plan. Did you have the right gear, clothing and fuel that day? If not, make sure to adjust your strategy and programme before the next one and adapt it to external factors. It’s only then that you will have the best possible chance of success.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Cyber Express. Any content provided by the author is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.