3 Tips to Improve Your Security Marketing

I think we can all agree, this past year has really challenged us as marketers to rethink our strategies and try new tactics for engaging with and supporting our customers.

Within Cisco Security Marketing, we’ve not only shifted to virtual events and digital offers—we’ve also evolved our branding in the market to power a more secure and inclusive future for all. With this knowledge in mind, here are three tips that you, as valued partners, can implement into your marketing practices to improve your security marketing results.

1. Embrace Digital Marketing

In-person events are clearly not a viable option right now, but we’ve been able to engage with customers effectively through webinars and virtual events.

For example, on July 8^th, we hosted our virtual Cisco Secure Insights Summit and saw tremendous success with over 45,500 live virtual event views globally and received positive feedback from our customers. The Summit featured such speakers like Megan Rapinoe from the Women’s US World Cup team, Theresa Payton, the first female White House CIO and Jon Oltsik from analyst firm ESG.  Together with our Cisco security leaders, we had unique perspectives and created an event that was not only informative, but also entertaining.

Let’s face it, if we are going to be stuck at home watching a virtual event the least we can do is make it an enjoyable experience! Regular product-focused webinars have a time and place in our marketing tactics, but I encourage you to have some fun with your virtual event by bringing in some non-traditional speakers.

Another area where we have seen continued success is with our digital free trial offers. Free trials are a great way to have our customers experience the value Cisco Secure products can provide in their own environment. They also provide lead pipeline for follow-up. You can join us in offering Cisco security free trials to your customers today.

2. Put the Hooded Figure Away

If you’ve been in the security industry for some time, you’ve probably used images of that ominous figure in a hoodie down in a basement trying to hack their way into a network. Guilty as charged, but now we should do better. Today’s cybercriminals are sophisticated, and they are typically well-funded to execute such malicious activities.  We need to move away from using this stereotypical security stock imagery and use more inclusive and diverse graphics to connect with our customers.

At virtual Cisco Live, we unveiled our new Cisco Secure branding. Simplicity is foundational to our Cisco Secure brand.  Our customers do not need to buy more security products to be secure—they need better security that is less complex and more automated and integrated.

Cisco Secure is also built on the idea that people play a foundational role in security as much as a product, solution or framework. Cisco Secure empowers our customers with the confidence that they’re safe from threats now and in the future. You’ll hear more about the Cisco Secure re-branding efforts in the coming months and how you can incorporate it into your marketing campaigns.

3. Speak to Customer Outcomes

Security should be an enabler for our customers as they continue to grow and move towards new digital transformation projects. Security scare tactics in our messaging are a thing of the past.  Instilling fear that threats lurk under every email or app just doesn’t evoke the customer reaction we want.  Security now more than ever involves not only the security practitioners but also the networking team, line of business, all the way up to executives so security should be used to elevate the conversation to address key customer and business outcomes.

That is why SecureX, our new security platform, is such a game changer.  SecureX is our simplified platform experience that connects Cisco’s integrated security portfolio to our customers’ existing infrastructure for a consistent experience that unifies visibility, enables automation, and strengthens your security across network, endpoints, cloud, and applications. CRN even recently named SecureX as one of the top ten coolest new cybersecurity tools making noise in the market today.

You can market SecureX as a way to help your customers cut down on the stress of overworked and understaffed security teams, help customers with vendor consolidation, and just achieve a better security strategy that is made to grow as your customers’ grow and their security needs change.  As long as a customer has at least one Cisco security product they can use SecureX.  And it’s FREE! That is like marketing gold people! To help you with this, I encourage you to check out our brand-new Security Simplified – Cisco SecureX campaign on Marketing Velocity Central.

Now more than ever marketing can have a meaningful impact on our customers and provide better support for our sales teams. And from a security standpoint, we can help change the conversation to reach new heights. I know our partners are up for the challenge. Happy marketing!