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Ask any marketing leader what their top five objectives are, and you can guarantee establishing their company as a thought leader will be high on the list. But while it’s a universal marketing goal, it’s often not clear exactly what value thought leadership delivers to the business. Marketing and PR often suffer from the fact it’s hard to put a definitive monetary value on activity and results, and this is doubly so for thought leadership.

After more than 20 years in cyber security PR and marketing, we know full well what kind of results a successful thought leadership campaign can deliver. We’ve helped establish security vendors as respected experts in their fields and seen them rapidly expand their market share as a result.

To back up our experience with something more tangible, we commissioned a survey into the impact of thought leadership on CISOs and other cyber security decision makers. We had some very powerful results from our first round of research, but this time we decided to go global, surveying more than 800 decision makers from around the world.

One of the most striking findings was the fact that three quarters (74 percent) of CISOs told us they would be willing to pay a premium to work with a cybersecurity vendor they consider to be a thought leader in its market sector.

Further, we also found that thought leadership has a strong influence throughout the entire buying process, all the way from researching industry challenges and shortlisting suppliers, to making final choices on vendor contracts. Nearly half of respondents said they had used thought leadership content when weighing up their final decision to appoint a vendor, and over a third have increased business with existing suppliers because of strong thought leadership.

In short, our research made it clear that good thought leadership absolutely contributes value to the business, providing a powerful boost to a cybersecurity vendor’s ability to attract, win and retain business.

If you’d like more insight, you can download a free copy of our free report. Highlights include:

• How thought leadership influences cyber security purchasing decisions.
• A look into the mind of a CISO – how they spend their time and what they want from content.
• The topics and mediums that make the most successful and influential content.
• The impact of COVID on the future of thought leadership.
• Practical steps on becoming an industry guru.
• Individual viewpoints from CISO and marketing specialists

Click here to download your copy now

We recently led a webinar with Insight Partners where we delved into just how influential thought leadership is on the cyber security buying process, fuelled by our new research report Inside the Mind of the CISO 2021.

You can watch the webinar in full below for insight into how CISOs consume thought leadership content, how it influences their purchasing decisions, and what kind of topics and mediums are most likely to make an impact.

Alongside the research, Code Red founder Dianne Canham is on hand to share the wisdom of more than 20 years in cyber security PR and marketing, and you’ll also find a case study on how privilege access management specialist Thycotic built up its position as an industry leader.

You can watch the webinar in full via the embedded video bellow:

Or head over to Insight Partners here if you’d like to download a copy.

Finally, to read the results of our research in full, click here to download your free copy of the Inside the Mind of the CISO 2021 report.

This blog post is part of a series leading up to our webinar: “Five fundamentals of a cyber security PR program in EMEA”. To attend, sign up today.

Native English speakers can easily assume that everyone speaks their language, as almost every country in the world prioritises it as a second language for their citizens to learn.

However, different countries in EMEA have societies with differing levels of language proficiency – especially in a business context. This is a critical issue, depending on the markets in EMEA that you choose to target.

Northern Europeans often speak English better than native speakers, while Mediterranean countries tend to have a much looser grasp. African and Arabic countries will have a reasonable level of English – but this is usually dependent on their historical ties to the UK and the number of ‘expats’ based in the country.

There are four top things to consider when it comes to navigating foreign languages:

English or local language?

For press liaison all written interaction for pitching stories, news releases etc should be in the local language. Supporting materials such as white papers, infographics etc should also be in the local language where possible.

This goes for marketing material as well. Nothing says ‘afterthought’ like trying to communicate with someone in their second language.

The best advice in this area is to appoint a local marketing and public relations agency in that country and listen to their advice. Don’t just view them as a hub for distributing what you have produced centrally.

If they advise that certain content needs to be translated it will be for a good reason – so pay heed!

The best use of translation companies

Your marketing and public relations agency will not be able to translate everything that you send them. While they can handle some everyday items, more in-depth white papers and other supporting material will likely need a professional translator.

The complex and industry-specific language of cyber security means that you need a translator with that specific experience. Your in-country agency should give you the details of some translation companies that they trust for you to consider.

Alternatively, you may want to get in touch with the local translation industry trade body for that country. They tend to have members detailing the correct expertise and with whom you can get in touch. Sorting a good translation provider can take some time so it is important to line one up well in advance.

Approving foreign language content

Approving content is usually straightforward when in English. However, your senior decision makers will not likely have the proficiency for other languages.

Content approvers need to review two things. Firstly, whether the content is technically accurate and communicates your message. Secondly, it needs to be constructed in a coherent way with good grammar.

The best approach is to ask a local internal operative to review for technical proficiency and whether it is communicating the subject that you would like it to. For structure and grammar my advice is to trust your marketing and public relations agency as this (should!) be their area of expertise.

Either way, you will probably need to revise your approval processes to a certain degree for EMEA.

Native spokespeople

Finally, journalists in many countries will only conduct interviews in their own native language. For webinars, podcasts or other verbal content, a native speaker should also be preferred. If you lack a native spokesperson, you can try and get around this by only submitting written commentary to the press and keeping your marketing generally focused on written content.

If you are taking your outreach seriously, you really need someone local with first language experience.

The best approach is to make sure that experience in speaking to the media and supporting the development of verbal marketing content is a component of the job description for the VP sales or other operatives that your organisation is appointing to the country. That way there is no need to hire extra people with this skill set further down the line.

Sign up to our webinar on launching EMEA PR campaigns to find out more about language considerations as well as other issues you need to think about when looking to promote yourself in the region.

This blog post is part of a series leading up to our webinar: “Five fundamentals of a cyber security PR program in EMEA”. To attend, sign up today.

‘EMEA’ is a big place. There are 44 countries in Europe, 54 in Africa and 16 in the Middle East (depending on how you count them). So, when you are asked to construct a PR campaign in EMEA you’ll need to get a lot more specific about what this exactly means.

This is especially important when it comes to budget. One of the most common issues I have when I consult with US cyber security businesses is a desire to cover more countries than their budget can realistically achieve.

Typically, the company board will list a number of countries in the EMEA region where they wish to increase sales. Then the head of marketing will be given a singular budget and told to devise a campaign that includes those target countries.

The first difficulty to overcome is mindset. People think EMEA PR will be one single campaign. In reality every country has its own media and often its own language – EMEA is not singular but very fragmented. Your budget will need to be split between each target country, and this reduces the economies of scale.

Secondly, the cost of doing public relations varies significantly between each country. The UK, Germany or France are larger countries with a greater diversity of media publications. It therefore follows that a greater spend will be needed in these countries over ones that have a much thinner media landscape to target. Furthermore, salaries of PR specialists vary considerably in different parts of EMEA. This also has a big impact on the budget that you need to allocate and must be carefully considered.

Often, the temptation will be to stick with the assigned target list of countries and only allow for a slim budget in each geography. Unfortunately, this is a worse than useless approach. Below a certain threshold, the PR agency that you have appointed simply will not have enough budget to make inroads to build relationships, develop stories, and secure the type of coverage you want to see. You will then face serious questions on the ROI from your internal stakeholders.

So, what can you do with a limited budget to achieve maximum results?

1) Be prepared to push back

Set out what is realistic to the board from the start. Marketing and public relations cannot be everywhere at once, it needs to be targeted. If they still insist, be bold. Do your research and speak to potential partner agencies to figure out what it will really cost. Push back and put forward the best way to get the best results.

2) Flexing between retainers and projects

Long-term success depends on building relationships with journalists and this takes time. So, PR agencies will say that they need the same retainer month in, month out. However, you can still flex. Look at having a base line retainer in target countries but then have the flexibility to put some booster project funding in at specific times of the year. This could be around an upcoming event, a significant white paper that you are publishing etc. This will help maximise coverage levels and give extra resource for when it matters.

3) Focusing on target publications, rather than target countries

You could also consider bringing together a top target list of 20 or so publications. These would be the most significant media channels that align with your business goals, hit your target audience etc. You can then allocate budget to focus on reaching these publications in a more direct way. This can sometimes help in keeping the budget focused and reducing the number of PR agencies that you need to appoint. However, this tends to be more useful to help you manage expectations internally about what you can achieve. Ultimately, you can’t escape the fact that with a limited budget, media coverage will have a limited role in the success of the wider business objectives.

Sign up to our webinar on launching EMEA PR campaigns to explore the issue of budgets as well as the other top headaches and considerations that you will need to address to guarantee success.

In early July, the United Arab Emirates – a country known for innovating and adopting new and cutting-edge approaches and ideas – announced that it had created the role of Head of Cyber Security, appointing Mohammed Al Kuwaiti.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE stated that he wanted a government that is more agile, meets the new priorities and reflects the changing world. The creation of this role is a very key part of that.

If you think about it, we have seen cyber threats grow, from phishing and email scams to DDoS attacks on corporations and countries alike, with motives such as election interference and foreign agents actively looking to promote agendas and politics in targeted countries.

To that end it is only logical that countries start to see that having a government department and a cabinet level minister representing cyber security is as key as having a minister of defense or national security. The dangers today are virtual and physical, and these virtual attacks are happening almost hourly.

Cyber crime is on the rise

Let’s do some numbers. The FBI as of April 2020 stated that cyber crime had increased to 4,000 attacks per day, a rise of 400 percent, while Interpol is seeing an alarming rate of cyberattacks. Microsoft reports that COVID-19 themed attacks, ranging from phishing to social engineering, are up to 20,000-30,000 per day in the US alone!

MonsterCloud reports that ransomware attacks are up 800 percent. A Fortinet Threat Mapping and Symantec Threat Report states that the top three countries making attacks are China (21 percent), the US (11 percent) and Russia (six percent). Those countries facing attacks are the US (38 percent) and India (17 percent) – if anything this means that the scope for these to rise and intensify are huge.

The Middle East is also seeing its rate of attacks rise hugely and, as the region becomes more prominent for good and bad, it is seen as vulnerable and lucrative for criminals and foreign agents alike.

Countries like Australia and Belgium are listed as being extremely vulnerable to cyber attack and the list is quite a surprising mix of developed and developing countries.

So, what does this all mean and why is this relevant to creating a role like the one that the United Arab Emirates has created?

A new role for new threats

The world has moved on and while we will always have conflicts and physical crime, nation-states and criminals are turning to the virtual methods to achieve their goals as they are often more effective and can have far better results. If we look at the recent Twitter BitCoin hack as well as the US election and the UK Brexit outcomes, we can see that national agendas can be easily achieved from afar and without a bullet being fired. So, defense takes on a new meaning and while weapons, armies and police forces all have their place, the virtual defense of a nation and its assets is becoming equally important.

Nations have cyber crime and cyber terrorist departments within their police, intelligence and security forces and some may even have them within their armed forces. However, this conveys a message that while cyber is important it is just a part of a wider net of protection around a country.

Having a dedicated ministry with a minister reporting directly to the country’s leadership says a great deal about the level of importance, investment and focus a country places on cyber security. Having such a focus can ensure that they are safer than most and focused on staying in front of in the ever-evolving cyber security environment. It is surprising that – to date – other countries have not created a similar ministry.

Having a ministry solely focused on cyber security sends a message that the country takes its national defense in this extremely sensitive area very seriously. It also shows the world that the nation is investing time, money and resources into cyber defenses and will not be an easy target.

Shaping the future of national defense

This represents a huge opportunity for our clients to become involved at the national level on an ongoing basis. Rather than purely selling and supporting their solutions, our clients can help shape policy and influence the future leadership of a nation in this area.

Given that we in the Code Red Network are focused on the reputation management of our cyber security clients it is truly wonderful to see a country that understands the importance of this area and the vision to anticipate the growing importance of cyber security as a national interest.

In my view we will see more countries adopting this route to reflect an ever evolving and changing world.

New UK survey reveals thought leadership helps cyber security vendors influence and build relationships with CISOs 

More than eight out of 10 (84 percent) IT security decision makers are more likely to work with an organisation that publishes thought leadership content over those that don’t, according to new research. More than 200 senior security decision-makers were surveyed on how thought leadership influences their behaviour by Code Red, an international cyber security specialist PR network. The findings reveal that good thought leadership impacts CISO’s decisions and can put them ahead of their competitors.

The research shows security decision-makers spend more than three hours every week consuming thought leadership content. The amount of time spent consuming thought leadership impacts attitudes towards the organisation that publishes it, with three in five senior security decision-makers stating that it increases respect, trust and perception of an organisation’s capabilities. 74 percent say they are willing to pay a premium price to a cyber security vendor who is a thought leader in their market.

The findings revealed that thought leadership has an impact on the jobs of those who consume it. On average, almost 40 percent of respondents said they believe thought leadership content helps them do their job better with 61 percent claiming it has helped influence a different way of working. The format has a huge influence on its success as Code Red discovered 47 percent prefer factual content through a case study format, followed by the accessibility of podcasts (40 percent), and news articles and webinars (both 39 percent).

Commenting on the findings, Code Red managing director, Dianne Canham said: “This research highlights exactly why cyber security vendors need to invest in creating compelling thought leadership content. A common misconception is that thought leadership only drives initial brand awareness. The findings highlight the role played by different types of thought leadership content throughout the sales buying process from awareness to purchase and beyond. Every marketer working for a cyber security vendor can use this data to justify allocating extra budget to building a thought leadership position for their business.

“To create content that will reach and influence CISOs and other key audiences, organisations must balance fresh, relevant insights and advice with a format that is convenient and accessible. Thought leadership is one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s arsenal – if you can strike the right balance.”

You can view the full results of the survey here, in our free e-book.

In our eBooks, Code Red agencies provide advice covering the entire launch process in their region, including planning the initial go-to-market, creating a channel network, and establishing a PR strategy.

The Code Red IT Security PR Network offers cyber security vendors looking to build a profile in a competitive market place the opportunity to work with security PR specialists globally. Each agency has been hand-picked for its in-depth experience in the IT security market place. The aim is to simplify the task of marketing and corporate communications executives at security vendors in finding and managing specialist agencies to develop and execute multi-country PR campaigns, which can be coordinated either centrally or on a country-by-country basis.

Code Red was founded by UK IT security specialist agency éclat Marketing to fill the gap between large multi-national agency conglomerates and small independent boutique agencies.

Code Red founder Dianne Canham comments: “The security market is currently attracting massive investments on an unprecedented scale and spawning a new wave of innovative start-ups and IPOs. Businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of investing in the appropriate defences against data breaches and malware and are looking for technology to help mitigate the shortage of security skills and tackle new threat vectors posed by mobile devices, the cloud and now the Internet of Things.”

“Currently CMOs at security vendors are forced to choose between global reach and security specialisation in selecting their PR partners. Now there is a viable alternative that allows them to work with a global network of experienced security PR professionals, or – as the profession is so fond of saying – ‘You’re only as strong as the weakest link’.”

Who
Code Red Security PR Network.

What
Global PR-communication services to help security companies expand into new markets and benefit from the local specialist knowledge.

Where
Global presence with partners on every continent.

When
Launched July 2015.