State of Cybersecurity Marketing 2023: Top Insights from Global Security Leaders
Over the last few years, the demand for advanced and proactive cybersecurity solutions has exploded across industries. The proliferation of threats and the continuous influx of attacks have influenced organisations to invest more effectively towards their security infrastructure.
This growing demand has also created a broader scope for new vendors and developers to enter the scene and market their solutions to wider industries. However, it also means that competitive pressure is mounting up in the security sector.
A few years ago, cybersecurity marketing was seen as more of a basic ‘tickbox’ responsibility for vendors. The lack of solution providers meant generating leads was less of a challenge for vendors. However, as more startups are coming aboard, marketing has become a critical business function for security solution providers. In 2022, security ventures raised over $22 billion in funding.
At the same time, security vendors are facing a grim economic challenge, similar to other industries. The global recession has forced many organisations to rethink their budgeting strategy and attain a tighter least on the financials. In 2022, several leading cybersecurity organisations laid off around 10% of their sales and marketing staff due to financial challenges.
How are global security leaders evolving their marketing in the face of renewed competitive pressure and growing economic challenges? We surveyed 100 marketing leaders from cybersecurity vendors with 100+ employees across the US and UK markets, and these were their insights:
How will cybersecurity marketing budgets change for vendors in 2023?
Our study found that most cybersecurity vendors are poised to be significantly vigilant regarding their marketing expenditures in the next financial year. Over 35% of the vendors across the US and US markets will likely decrease their marketing budgets in the next financial year to cope with the ongoing economic challenges.
Around 45% are reluctant to change their marketing budgets compared to the previous financial year. The general perception across the industry is that another potential recession might be around the corner, and organisations will want to assess the economic landscape diligently throughout Q1 and Q2 of 2023 before significantly changing their marketing finances.
Agency consolidation will become a key trend for security vendors
With all these challenges, how will marketing strategies change in the security industry? Upon asking the vendors in our study, we found that ‘agency consolidation’ will likely be a strategic trend.
Most cybersecurity solution providers collaborate with several third-party agencies to carry out their marketing and sales responsibilities. One agency might be responsible for public relations, whereas another might manage the website and social campaigns.
Organisations will likely seek services from a single agency rather than manage several third parties to save costs without changing marketing performance. This will also pave the way for holistic marketing, where vendors execute several strategies through a single channel.
How will vendors spend their marketing budgets?
We found that cybersecurity firms are likely to spend on PR this year rather than other promotional strategies.
In 2022, vendors spent the largest portion of their marketing budgets (30% on average) on trade shows and booth sponsorships. This was mostly because trade shows and conventions returned to ‘normal’ physical events for the first time in three years, and vendors wanted to make a larger impact on the frontier.
On average, 18% of the marketing budget in the last financial year was spent on PR and media liaison. Organic social media activities, lead generation, and industry award placements also formed part of the budget. The trends were relatively similar in both the US and UK markets.
But how will this spending trend change in the next financial year? While most aspects of marketing expenditure are poised to remain relatively similar in 2023, leaders indicated that public relations and media liaison spending would increase to an average of 30% in the next financial year. Consequently, trade show and sponsorship expenditures will reduce. Our survey also indicated that vendors would likely spend more on paid media and lead generation activities.
So what is driving this change? Over 80% of the leaders in our survey indicated that their firm’s public relations and media liaison activities in the previous financial year either met or exceeded their performance expectations. As a result, security vendors will focus their marketing activities more significantly across this category.
To sum up, cybersecurity marketing will evolve significantly in 2023. Vendors will likely become more stringent with their marketing budgets and adopt unified strategies, such as ‘agency consolidation,’. For more insights and analysis, follow Code Red on Twitter and LinkedIn.