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This week, I examine cybersecurity sales, developer content marketing, and fundraising pitches through a common lens: the importance of understanding your audience and putting them first. — Anne

Bridging the gap between cybersecurity vendors and buyers

Budget cuts caused by the economic downturn have caused a shift in the priorities and mindsets of chief information security officers (CISOs). As security practitioners begin to report to corporate boards, they need to understand how to do it and be more business-focused than technical, says marketing expert Dani Woolf.

Woolf is familiar with CISOs; After spending her career in B2B technology marketing, she spent months interviewing cybersecurity buyers for her podcast before launching her own audience research agency, Audience 1st, to help vendors better understand their target market.

A major challenge at the moment is for cybersecurity vendors to adapt to the new buyer mindset – which Woolf says will remain even after the market recovers. “There’s a huge gap right now as vendors add more complexity to the job of the security buyer, and they don’t understand that simplicity is the goal.”

Simplicity, however, does not mean that one tool replaces them all. One of the main things buyers want to hear from a vendor, Woolf told me, is how well you integrate with their existing technology stack. “Because as a buyer I can’t snatch what I have right now.”

Understanding CISOs

Read Anna Heim’s piece originally posted on TechCrunch

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