What is content marketing?
When we talk about content marketing, we refer to the full range of resources created for marketing purposes. In other words, content marketing is the ensemble of written collaterals, videos, social media posts or podcasts that tell users that you are a knowledgeable and trustworthy organisation that has a solution for their needs.
Why is content marketing important for cyber security companies?
Information value that makes you a cyber security expert
Cyber security threats are currently the top risk for businesses, causing significant financial losses or even leading to bankruptcy. Now, more than ever, companies and end-users all over the world need to be informed about the cyber risks that they are exposed to. They need to receive expert advice on how to avoid such risks and protect themselves from cyber threats.
Who best to produce cyber security expert advice than a cyber security organisation that knows exactly the types of cyber threats that businesses and end-users might face, and also has the tips for them to take to avoid the threats?
So, in addition to creating awareness around the emerging cyber issues that can cause £million losses, cyber security companies can also provide solutions to the identified issues. These solutions are usually the products or services that the company developed that help solve the identified issue.
Competitive value of content marketing
Compelling, relevant and up-to-date cyber security content reflects expertise. The more topics you cover through informative content that brings value to the intended reader, the higher your competitive advantage. Each year, and even each month, new cyber security companies are launched to respond to the bustling cyber security threat actors that operate from all over the world.
As a result, the competition in the cyber security market is high. However, most of them only have a cyber-like-looking website that shares the same look and feel with hundreds of others in the industry, and use very similar taglines. So they lose themselves in sameness rather than in uniqueness.
With content marketing, cyber security companies have the opportunity to stand out, to show real value for their audience. Furthermore, a well written blog that takes into consideration the users’ search intent and that is search engine optimised, including keywords that users usually enter in their search queries so that they have a better chance to rank on Google’s first page!
Content marketing generates trustworthiness
Good content doesn’t go unnoticed, especially when it’s answering trending needs. When your cyber security company gets into the habit of creating monthly blogs around popular topics and manages to create clarity around the issues discussed, and provide a solution in a non-commercial approach, you will gain readers’ trust. Trustworthiness is a key indicator of a reputable company, and reputation is always good for business!
How to develop a content marketing strategy for a cyber security company?
Audience research
Knowing who is your audience is the starting point of the content marketing strategy, because it answers the questions:
- Who do you want to sell to?
- Who would need your cyber security service or product?
To answer these questions you will need to think of a persona, or more personas, depending on how many targeted segments you identify. A persona is a fictional person that encompasses the general characteristics of your targeted audience:
- Demographics (it fits into a specific age group, lives in a certain geographical area that you are serving to, has a typical family situation).
- Profession (they’re likely to work in more technical, operations, or admin roles).
- Has specific likes and dislikes that you need to be aware of, especially when they are related to their business environment that is exposed to specific cyber threats.
- Uses specific sources of information or entertainment. It’s important to know them, because you need to reach them with your content via the platforms that they are using.
Topics + keywords research
Now that you know who your targeted audience is, what are you going to write about to get their attention?
Again, you will need to research topics based on your audience audience. People regularly use the search tool to look for advice, or find information for situations or things they do not know how to solve. Therefore, initially, the topics should be informational. As the content marketing strategy evolves, the topics will move to a more commercial and then transactional focus, to meet users at different stages of their buyer journeys.
The keywords will follow the same process as the topics you’ll focus on. In order to find the right keywords that will help Google to understand what your content is about, you’ll need to go through a keywords research process. The process will identify the most popular keywords, but also ones that are less popular and more specific to your niche. The initial keywords list should include short tail and long tail keywords. Short tail keywords are more generic searches that users enter into the search engine. They contain one or two words, which brings up broad topics. Long tail keywords are three or more words used when a more specific topic is searched for. This allows the content writer to target a more niche audience. You can then select the ones that you believe will help you produce valuable content for your readers, while also creating opportunities for your content to be found and clicked on.
Regularly update the content
Look into the analytics of your website. Check what search queries are bringing impressions to your website, and how many of those impressions lead to clicks? If the number of impressions is too high comparatively with the number of clicks, it means that there is an interest among your audience for that topic. In this case, Google shows your website on the search engine result pages (SERP). However, users don’t click on your content, choosing to click on other sources.
IIf that’s what you’re dealing with, you need to see what are the top suggested pages on Google for that search query. Check those sources (most probably your competition), and see what they’re doing better than you to get all those clicks that helped them gain a top 5 position in SERP. If they are targeting other keywords you need to update your content. You will see what keywords they are targetingacross their headers, first paragraphs, and in other mentions across the content.
Remember, it’s not only about what keywords you use, but also how you use them to bring value to the reader, and to attract the reader to your page in the first place.
Content marketing ideas for cyber security companies
As indicated at the beginning of this blog, content can take several formats: written text (such as press releases, web releases and blogs, case studies, social media copies, infographics, newsletters), graphic designs, videos, or podcasts.
After the content is created originally for each of these formats, it can be repurposed for others. For instance, a podcast can be repurposed into a blog, newsletter, or social media posts. Social media posts can be used as the theme of a podcast, especially when specific posts generated significant engagement among followers.
Here are some ideas of topics and themes that cyber security companies can use for their content marketing:
Themes and topics for cyber security content marketing
- The “need and solution” theme. Here, you will identify your target audience’s bottlenecks and pain points. You will next provide a solution to these, in a manner that is relevant to your readers. The solution will address how to overpass them, rather than emphasising your product or service.
- Trending cyber security threats that can affect organisations and individuals. Explain the threats, what consequences can they have for business and individual users? How to prevent them from falling victim.
- Opinion pieces on cyber attacks will show expertise in the area. This type of content will also allow you the opportunity to indicate how your service or product could have prevented the attack. Most importantly, it can inform readers how it can help them to avoid falling prey to similar attacks.
- Case studies showing results obtained for real life clients. Reviews and testimonials from clients will contribute to your company’s trustworthiness.
- Interviews with guest experts via podcasts, where they can talk about trending cyber security themes, or answer questions from users.
- ‘How to’ video tutorials to gain quick popularity on YouTube: ‘How to protect your wifi from being hacked’, ‘How to back up your digital files’, etc.
- Answer questions from your readers or followers across social media.
There are many themes and topics emerging across the cyber security industry that you can write about each month or even more often. We’ve worked with cyber security organisations like UK Cyber Clusters Collaboration (UKC3), Pryvate, Threat Essentials, Medicare Network, and CyNam to name a few, which we’ve helped create their content marketing strategy and gain visible results on Google search and social media.
If you need help with your content marketing, give us a shout.
