Here’s How Thought Leadership Really Influences CISOs

Ask any marketing leader for their top objectives, and we guarantee building thought leadership 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 because it’s hard to put a definitive monetary value on results. This is doubly so for thought leadership.

After over 20 years in the industry, we know the results a successful thought leadership campaign can deliver. We’ve helped establish security vendors as experts in their fields. We have also 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 leaders strongly influence the entire buying process, 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 leaders 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