Cybersecurity Marketing, Part 1: Define Your Cybersecurity Target Audience
This is part 1 of our five-part series about cybersecurity advertising and marketing. It covers how to define your cybersecurity target audience. Part 2 explains how to create good content. That is followed by part 3, which discusses which platforms are best for campaign deployment. Finally, we round out the series with part 4, which explains how to build out lead nurture. We end with part 5, which is about measuring, optimizing, and replicating results.
Before you can begin marketing, you need to understand who your audience is and what is most important to them. Only then can you create custom messaging that addresses their top concerns. This will require you to segment the different roles within your audience. In the case of cybersecurity, it is highly likely that the person making the purchasing decision is not the person using the product daily—but that end user may still be influencing the decision.
Want all five parts of our step-by-step blog series, plus bonus content?
Check out our free eBook: Marketing Cybersecurity: A How-To Guide
First, Determine Their Purchasing Role
Buyers
The IT department or SecOps teams will focus their evaluations on security performance, usability, and how well your solution meshes with their other initiatives. If the primary buyer is the line of business that will actually be using the product, their priority will be how well the product helps them meet departmental goals. Actual security performance may be secondary—especially if they’re just trying to check a compliance box.
Buyers are in charge of the final purchasing decision.
Users
They’ll care most about usability and how well it helps them do their job. In the sales process, they’ll want to see what the interface looks like and how certain features work. They want something better than what they’re currently working with, and they’re looking for relief from daily frustrations.
Users are, precisely what it sounds like, the people who will be using the product.
Influencers
For cybersecurity solutions, many people have to be looped in since the nature of the product impacts nearly every department. The CFO, risk management department, and head of operations are some additional roles you should consider creating marketing materials for. Pinpoint the bottom line for each of these influencers.
Influencers include anyone else in the company whose opinion carries weight in the decision process.
Then, Consider Specific Messaging for Each Cybersecurity Target Audience
Once you understand each buyer, user, and influencer role, you can select the messages that will resonate best with each audience based on their unique set of priorities.
Targeting the top of the funnel with buyer-focused content is the best approach for generating initial lead flow. This audience typically consists of CISOs, VPs, and directors, and you’ll want to offer them content focused on the overall business value instead of specific UI/ UX benefits. (These are saved for user-focused content, proofs-of-concept, and demos when users are brought into the decision-making process.)
Be Careful of the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) Hype Cycle
We can probably all agree that FUD is overdone in cybersecurity. Or at least cybersecurity buyers and the largest cybersecurity publications have agreed on this for some time.
Half the blame goes to all the marketers crying wolf. They’ve gone so far overboard in predicting calamities that haven’t occurred that no one has credibility anymore. The other half of the blame goes to noise. You’ve got stats saying we’re doomed unless we buy your solution? Yawn. So does everyone else.
For most solutions with active buyer cycles, FUD should take a back seat to explaining why your solution is superior to other options—including those of direct and indirect competitors. Most FUD is focused on persuading buyers to take action by dragging them out of their state of inertia. However, for markets where organizations are actively evaluating solutions, those resistant to change are your least valuable prospects. It’s much harder to convince someone to buy something than to buy your solution.
Along those lines, you can make a case that FUD has a place for solutions where no one is taking the threat you guard against seriously. If they’re not currently planning on doing anything to guard against the threats you can protect them from, then some (modest) FUD may be in order. But keep in mind that the more hysterical and high-pitched your warnings, the more buyers will tune you out.
You Know Who You’re Talking To – What’s Next?
Once you’ve determined the main groups you’re talking to, you’ll want to create content that resonates with each. For example, members of the IT implementation team might want technical content to ensure an easy onboarding process. In contrast, the C-Suite will want data points verifying that your solution will protect them from the latest threats. Want to know which content you should start with?
Want to learn more about what we can do for you?
Let’s Talk
- Don’t Wait for Perfection, Get Your B2B Marketing Campaign in Market - December 3, 2025
- B2B Marketing Persona: Why You Shouldn’t Go TOO Niche - November 21, 2025
- Don’t Neglect the Middle of the Funnel: Tips for a Strong B2B Lead Nurture Strategy - October 14, 2025
