Cybersecurity Marketing: Six Placements Beat Sixty

Every security startup claims to be revolutionary. Every funding round gets a press release. Every vendor at RSA has a booth saying roughly the same thing about visibility, detection and reducing analyst burnout.

Into that environment, most of the security companies I see bring a volume strategy. More announcements, more placements, more content. It's the intuitive response and it's the wrong one, because the problem isn't insufficient output. It's that so little said in this category is distinguishable. Cybersecurity marketing works when it does the opposite: fewer, more specific claims, placed where security buyers already look.

Key takeaways

• In an April 2026 Coleman Parkes survey of 500 security decision makers in the US, UK, France and Germany, commissioned by the PR firm The Hoffman Agency, the top four places respondents first heard about a vendor were peers (35%), industry analysts (32%), industry events (28%) and the industry trade press (26%).
• In the same survey, 65% of respondents contacted vendors before drawing up a shortlist, and 87% agreed that evidence of delivering for similar businesses drives their decision.
• RSAC 2026 reported more than 600 exhibitors on its expo floor. For a planned conference announcement, my advice is to pitch reporters weeks ahead rather than during conference week.

Why is cybersecurity marketing so hard?

Cybersecurity marketing is hard for reasons built into the category, starting with a buyer whose job is doubting claims.

The buyer is professionally paranoid. A CISO's job is assessing whether claims are true. They evaluate vendors the way they evaluate threats, and marketing language triggers the same reflex.

Overclaiming has a long history here. The category has decades of products that didn't do what was promised, and many experienced buyers have been burned. Skepticism isn't a communications obstacle to overcome; it's the correct professional posture.

Few customers want to discuss their security publicly. Which means the customer reference, the asset that solves credibility problems in most other categories, is unusually hard to obtain. Security teams don't want to describe their stack, their incidents, or their gaps.

The claims converge. Read the positioning of ten security vendors in any subcategory and the differences are nearly invisible from outside.

What cuts through with security buyers?

What cuts through with security buyers is precision: fewer claims, each specific enough to check, placed where those buyers already look.

Precision over volume. In my experience, a small number of placements in outlets your buyer genuinely reads does more than broad coverage. When we report coverage, we count independently reported stories separately from paid placements, wire reprints and syndicated copies.

We ran this with Vanta at their Series A. The company had thousands of customers and little public recognition. In a category where the default is spray-and-pray, we placed six pieces — anchored by a Forbes exclusive framed as an industry story rather than a funding announcement, extended with VentureBeat for the technical audience, a regional business placement, and executive thought leadership in Fortune and the Wall Street Journal. Average domain authority across the six was 92.

The Forbes piece led to Vanta's inclusion on Forbes' Next Billion-Dollar Startups list, which is the type of credential that compounds through years of sales conversations. Six placements did what sixty wouldn't have.

Buyers have said where they look. In an April 2026 Coleman Parkes survey of 500 security decision makers in the US, UK, France and Germany, commissioned by the PR firm The Hoffman Agency, the top four sources for first hearing about a vendor were peers (35%), industry analysts (32%), industry events (28%) and the industry trade press (26%). Other channels followed, including business technology media at 22%. That's a short list of where attention starts, and it's the target. We judge an outlet's authority and its fit as two separate tests, and a famous name never excuses a weak fit.

Original research. Security has an established culture of vendor research. Verizon's Data Breach Investigations Report and Mandiant's M-Trends come out every year and get covered every year, which shows how genuine findings can earn coverage and citation. Many companies sitting on detection telemetry publish opinion instead, which wastes an asset competitors can't copy.

Naming what you don't do. In a category where everyone claims comprehensive coverage, stating your boundaries gives buyers a more specific claim to evaluate. Practitioners and reporters both read the absence of caveats as a tell.

The security trade press over general tech press. Dark Reading, SecurityWeek, CyberScoop and The Record cover the category full time. They and the independent analysts need technical detail and evidence relevant to their audiences, and both are among the top four places buyers first hear about vendors. Even so, most security startups I see over-index on general tech press.

What should security companies stop doing?

Security companies can drop several habits that only add to the category's noise.

Announcing funding as the story. The round is an occasion. The story is what's changing in the threat landscape or the buying environment that makes your approach necessary.

Leading with the acronym. Every security category has one and buyers are exhausted by them. Describing the problem in operational terms works better than positioning inside a Gartner category name.

Fear-based messaging. In my view it has worn thin. Explain how a threat affects the buyer's operations and what your product can demonstrably change.

Chasing RSA volume. RSAC 2026 had more than 600 exhibitors. Being one of them is not a strategy, and news dropped during conference week competes for attention with the event's sessions and hundreds of exhibitors. If RSA matters, pitch reporters weeks before it.

The uncomfortable requirement

In my experience, the thing that would most improve a security company's marketing is a customer willing to talk publicly, and it's the hardest thing to get in this industry.

Buyers say as much. In the Coleman Parkes survey for The Hoffman Agency, 87% agreed that evidence of delivering for similar businesses drives their decision, just behind value for money and easy integration at 89%.

It's worth the disproportionate effort anyway. In a category where vendors make near-identical claims, one CISO willing to describe what actually changed in their operation is worth more than any amount of content. Companies that build that pipeline start early: they ask customers what they can say publicly, offer anonymized options or partial participation, and agree attribution limits before approaching reporters.

Common questions

What is cybersecurity marketing? Cybersecurity marketing is how companies that sell security products and services build awareness and trust with security buyers. In a 2026 survey of 500 security decision makers (Coleman Parkes for the PR firm The Hoffman Agency), respondents most often first heard about a vendor from peers, analysts, events and the trade press.

How do you market to CISOs? With specificity: explain the operational problem, state your product's limits, and back claims with evidence from comparable organizations. In a 2026 survey of security decision makers for The Hoffman Agency, 87% agreed that evidence of delivering for similar businesses drives their decision, behind value for money and easy integration at 89%.

Is volume or precision better for security PR? Precision, in my view. Prioritize the publications your buyers actually use, and set outreach goals around audience relevance and the evidence you can offer reporters rather than a placement count.

Where do security buyers first hear about vendors? Peers, industry analysts, industry events and the security trade press were the top four sources in a 2026 survey of 500 security decision makers (Coleman Parkes for the PR firm The Hoffman Agency). Other channels, including business technology media, followed. The survey shows where awareness starts, not which placements win customers.

What content works best in cybersecurity? Original research, in my view, because it gives reporters something new to report. Security has an established culture of vendor research: Verizon's Data Breach Investigations Report and Mandiant's M-Trends are annual reports that received security trade coverage again in 2026.

Sources

• The Hoffman Agency, 62% of organizations in the search for new cybersecurity vendors in the next 12 months, EIN Presswire, June 16, 2026 (Coleman Parkes Research survey of 500 cybersecurity decision makers, April 2026; full report: CCgroup, Cybersecurity Marketing: Fast decisions, high stakes)
• RSAC, RSAC Conference Closes 35th Annual Flagship Event Backed by The Power of Community, PR Newswire, March 27, 2026
• Matt Kapko, Attackers hit vulnerabilities hard last year, making exploits the top entry point for breaches, CyberScoop, May 19, 2026
• Anamarija Pogorelec, Attackers are handing off access in 22 seconds, Mandiant finds, Help Net Security, March 24, 2026

Salient PR works with security and compliance companies, including Vanta's Series A campaign. Survey and conference figures come from the public sources above.