Lead Generation Strategies for Cybersecurity

Introduction

Cybersecurity remains a top priority for businesses, as threats continue to escalate and compliance demands become stricter. In fact, 93% of organizations plan to increase their cybersecurity spending over the coming year. This investment surge is driven by the recognition that businesses failing to strengthen their security defenses face significant risks to their data as well as to their reputations and customer trust.

Consider 23andMe, which experienced a month-long data breach in 2023 affecting 7 million users. The company paid a $30 million settlement, but the greater cost came in lost public trust. At the time of writing, 23andMe just filed for bankruptcy, and users are being urged to delete their data. Since its peak in 2021, 23andMe’s stock has plummeted 90%. This case illustrates how cybersecurity breaches can damage not just data but also consumers’ confidence in a brand—something much harder to recover.

As IT service providers, your responsibility extends beyond protecting customers’ data to safeguarding their brand reputation. To maximize your impact, you need effective marketing and lead generation tactics. In this blog, we'll focus specifically on lead generation strategies that deliver results for cybersecurity services.

Effective Lead Generation Approaches

1. Organic and Paid Search: Building Long-Term Visibility

Organic Search

Organic search leverages SEO-driven content such as blogs, white papers, and website pages to attract targeted visitors. Its benefits include:

• Cost-effectiveness: Inexpensive to create content if executed in-house
• Longevity: High-quality content can drive leads for months or even years

The process involves:

• Prioritizing keywords by evaluating ranking difficulty versus potential traffic
• Clustering similar keywords into groups to build content momentum

While organic search can be cost-effective long-term, it requires patience. Organizations should plan to wait 6–12 months before seeing meaningful results, with ROI typically coming after 12–18 months. The strategy faces two significant challenges:

• Geographic limitations: For regionally focused IT service providers, organic search can bring visitors from anywhere in the world, many of whom may not be qualified prospects.
• Intense competition: With over 20,000 IT service providers in the US alone publishing content regularly, standing out is difficult.

For businesses without geographic constraints, organic search can work well if you narrow your focus to a specific niche. Rather than targeting all SMBs—numbering in the hundreds of thousands—focus on law firms or accounting firms, for example, where there are only a few thousand potential clients. The search volume will be lower, but the competition will be significantly less.

Paid Search

Paid search (pay-per-click, PPC) accelerates visibility using targeted keyword ads. However, it comes with risks:

• High competition can rapidly burn budgets
• Limited control over audience targeting can potentially waste your spend

Unless carefully managed by experienced marketers, PPC can quickly become expensive and ineffective. It is not uncommon for an MSP to spend tens of thousands of dollars without generating a single lead.

2. LinkedIn Ads: Precision Targeting for Maximum ROI

LinkedIn Ads provide a highly targeted approach, ideal for reaching specific decision-makers within your ideal customer profiles. Key advantages include:

• Precise targeting by role, industry, company size, and geography
• High-quality leads from clearly defined audiences
• Ability to upload specific accounts or contacts to target
• Assurance that every ad dollar is spent reaching your ideal customer profile

While LinkedIn charges a premium for this targeting capability, the results justify the cost when executed correctly. The most important ad objectives to use are website visits and document ads.

A best-practice approach involves structuring campaigns in two stages:

Cold Layer (Awareness/Evaluation)

• Use 20–35 second videos addressing specific cybersecurity challenges your target audience faces
• Offer valuable free resources (guides, case studies) that visitors can download
• Focus on being the guide while positioning the customer as the hero
• Use the website visits objective, which is the most economical method for creating a warm audience

Warm Layer (Evaluation/Consideration)

• Retarget those who engaged with your cold layer content (e.g., they watched 50% of a video)
• Use document ads to get resources in front of viewers already familiar with your brand
• Include website visit ads focused on bottom-of-funnel offers like security assessments
• Provide high-value offers that deliver meaningful, tangible benefits

The time horizon for seeing results with LinkedIn ads is much shorter than with search strategies. Well-structured campaigns can generate initial leads within days, with meetings typically booked within 2–3 months. Cost per conversion generally ranges from $25 to $150, depending on target audience specifics and overall market conditions.

3. Outbound Prospecting: Personalized and Multi-Channel

Outbound prospecting uses personalized, one-to-one communication to directly reach potential clients. Effective channels include:

• Cold email
• Voice (cold calling and voicemails)
• LinkedIn one-to-one messaging
• Direct mail or handwritten mail

For maximum effectiveness, use multiple channels with multiple touchpoints across each. The key is finding the right balance between frequency and respecting prospects' boundaries.

Cold Email

• Use one-to-one emails that appear personally written rather than HTML-heavy marketing emails
• Consider using burner domains and inboxes to protect your primary domain
• Keep send volume below 50 emails per day per inbox
• Vary send frequency and message content
• Use tools specifically designed for cold email (not mass marketing)
• Configure proper SPF, DMARC, DKIM, and domain forwarding

LinkedIn Messaging

• Implement proper safety measures if automating outreach
• Use cloud infrastructure with throttles for daily invitation limits
• Randomize frequency between invitation sends
• Warm up your LinkedIn sending gradually

Cold Calling

• Focus on tonality—for example, coming across as confused and in need of help is more effective than being enthusiastic
• Try opening with transparency: "Hi [name], this is [your name]. We haven't met before and this is a cold call. Do you have 30 seconds for me to explain why I'm calling?"

Direct Mail

• Consider what type of mail you'd like to receive
• Handwritten notes generate exponentially higher response rates than mass-produced direct mail

Across all outbound channels, focus on awareness and evaluation rather than jumping straight to consideration. Lead with value by offering content as a low-barrier way to build relationships.

Best Practices: Aligning Offers and Audience

Regardless of the strategy chosen, the critical success factor remains alignment between your audience and your offer:

• Offer compelling, high-value resources that will provide real-world value to your audience
• Test continuously to optimize alignment between your offers, messaging, and targeted audiences
• Prioritize testing the offer-audience match first, as this is often the most impactful variable influencing campaign success

To learn more about developing content for both business and technical decision makers, read our blog How to Develop a Cybersecurity Marketing Plan.

Based on our experience, the most effective lead generation approach for cybersecurity combines outbound prospecting with LinkedIn ads, targeting a specific niche with a narrow focus. Key elements include:

• Aligning content across LinkedIn and outbound efforts toward the same goal
• Accelerating prospects through awareness and evaluation into consideration
• Offering something prospects find disproportionately more valuable than the time required to participate

While organic and paid search have their place, they work best when:

• You're focused on a specific industry
• You're not bound geographically
• They're components of a broader strategy, not your primary focus

Content produced for organic search can be leveraged across other platforms—LinkedIn ads, outbound email, social media, and direct mail—maximizing your investment.

Conclusion: Integrating Lead Generation Strategies for Optimal Results

For IT service providers focusing on cybersecurity, the ideal lead generation strategy integrates outbound prospecting and LinkedIn Ads, supplemented by targeted content creation. Organic and paid search tactics are valuable but should complement rather than dominate the strategy, especially for geographically restrictive providers.

Through careful strategy integration and persistent optimization, providers can significantly enhance lead quality, shorten sales cycles, and effectively protect the businesses they serve.

Remember: In cybersecurity marketing, your goal isn't just generating leads—it's building trust and establishing your brand as a reliable security partner that can protect not only your clients' data but their reputations as well.