Know Your Audience and Cater to Them: Our Advice

Cybersecurity marketing is rewarding, stimulating, and future-proof. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. As a cybersecurity marketer, you’ll be all too aware of this fact. Running engaging campaigns, communicating complex ideas, and standing out in an increasingly saturated market is no mean feat. And, in an industry as technical as ours, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details and forget what really matters: crafting content that resonates with customers.

Knowing your audience is a foundational pillar of marketing in any industry, but it’s especially important for cybersecurity. Our business is one of extraordinary nuance: we can only build trust and cut through the noise by crafting laser-focused messaging tailored to each audience.

Keep reading to find out how.

Step One: Build Buyer Personas, Understand Your Customers

Getting to know your audience is the first and most important stage of creating content that resonates with them. It all starts with this – whatever other factors are in play, be they resource, budget, or staffing constraints, if you have a deep understanding of your audience, you will inevitably create content they want to read. Buyer personas are the best way to gain this understanding.

A buyer persona, also known as a customer persona, is a hypothetical profile of your ideal customer. It’s a way to get inside your audience’s head and tailor your content to them.

Buyer personas have been a mainstay of marketing for decades. Still, it’s worth mentioning that they have recently made their way into politics: in the most recent UK election, the Conservative Party targeted Harold, Denise, Alison, and Mark, while the Labour Party pinpointed, among others, Stevenage woman as an important swing voter. The expansion of buyer personas into areas beyond marketing is a testament to their effectiveness.

How to Build a Buyer Persona

So, how can you create an effective buyer persona? While there’s no single, established method, the process should look a little like this:

Information Gathering: Research your audience by analyzing existing customer data (such as through your CRM, website, or social media), conducting customer interviews, surveying prospects, researching relevant industry trends and threats, and analyzing your competitors’ targets.
Identifying Key Characteristics: Consider your cybersecurity audience’s demographics (for example, company size, industry, location, and IT structure), psychographics (values, risk tolerance, aspirations, for example), goals and challenges, and buying behavior.
Create a Persona Profile: Create a persona profile with a name, photo, summary of role and characteristics, description of a typical day, motivations for choosing your solution, and potential concerns.

Step Two: Establish Your Value Proposition

With your buyer personas created, you should have a pretty clear idea of your audience and what they want. Now, it’s time to use that information to establish your value proposition.

Pay Attention to Pain Points

Your buyer persona details the specific challenges your ideal customers face; these are crucial details for creating a strong value proposition. For example, don’t just say, “We protect you from cyber threats;” say, “We simplify HIPAAWhat is HIPAA? The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a comprehensive piece of legislation enacted by the United States Congress in 1996.It serves as a vital safeguard... More compliance and stop ransomwareWhat is Ransomware? Ransomware is a type of cyberattack in which the attacker infects a computer with malicious software that encrypts the victim's data. The computer usually becomes locked, presenting... More attacks before they access patient data, all within your budget.”

Make Use of Motivations

When communicating your value proposition, you also need to consider what your target audience is trying to achieve. Again, this information will be included in your buyer personas. Craft messaging that clearly demonstrates how your solution will help your audience achieve their goals. Again, don’t just say, “We keep your organization secure;” say, “Our proactive threat detection and incident response capabilities minimize downtime, protect your reputation, and ensure the long-term security of your organization.”

Tailor Your Messaging

You must write your value proposition in the language your persona uses. If they’re highly technical, use technical language. If they’re more business-focused, emphasize ROI, risk reduction, and business impact. Prioritize the benefits that matter to each specific persona. Think of it like this: if you’re targeting penetration testers, they’re unlikely to use the same terminology as someone engaging with security awareness training content.

Craft a Clear, Concise, and Compelling Statement

Your value proposition should be a concise and memorable statement that clearly communicates the value you provide to your target persona. It should answer the question: “Why should this persona choose our solution?”

Step Three: Craft Your Content

By now, you will have laid the groundwork for the all-important final stage – content creationWhat is Content Creation? Content creation refers to generating material, such as text, images, videos, or audio for online or offline platforms. Organizations typically create content to engage an audience,... More. As marketers, this is the core of everything we do. Informative, engaging content is enormously powerful; your buyer personas and value propositions will help you create it. Here are our best practices for leveraging them for effective content:

Align with Personas: Directly address persona pain points and motivations. Don’t be generic; focus on specific challenges and how your solution helps them achieve their goals.
Tailor Content: Use persona language and preferred formats. Match content length to their needs, providing concise summaries in some scenarios and in-depth articles in others.
Demonstrate Value: Show, don’t tell. Use case studies, testimonials, and data. Proactively address their challenges and offer valuable insights and best practices.
Targeted Content Examples: Create persona-specific content (e.g., a compliance white paper for a CISO, a breach prevention case study for a security director, or a technical blog post for an analyst).
Strategic Promotion: Use your audience’s preferred channels (LinkedIn, Twitter, or forums, for example) and tailor promotion messages to each persona’s interests.

How Bora Does It

So far, this blog has been all talk. Sure, we can tell you how to do it, but can we do it ourselves? You bet we can. Bora recently created a Survival Guide eBook tailored for CISOs using this method.

We incorporated insights from venture capital firms and industry leaders to provide actionable information on emerging cybersecurity trends – Identity, Data, Infrastructure/Cloud, and Code – aligning with the needs of CISOs. The result? Data-rich analysis that positioned the client as a thought leader in the industry. You can check out the full case study here.

Want to find out more about what Bora can do for your organization? Schedule a discovery call today.