Ask any marketing leader what their top five objectives are, and you can guarantee establishing their company as a thought leader 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 from the fact it’s hard to put a definitive monetary value on activity and results, and this is doubly so for thought leadership.
After more than 20 years in cyber security PR and marketing, we know full well what kind of results a successful thought leadership campaign can deliver. We’ve helped establish security vendors as respected experts in their fields and 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 leadership has a strong influence throughout the entire buying process, all the way 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 leadership 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
Click here to download your copy now