Cybersecurity marketing leaders, a quick question for you.
If your budget gets cut during a difficult period, what does that tell you?
Unless your superiors are mentally deficient, it tells you one simple truth: nobody knows whether the dollars you spend on marketing lead to (hopefully more) sales dollars.
That's it.
Now, you can wail and moan and gnash your teeth about this all day long... but it won't change a thing. If your budget gets cut, it means you can't PROVE you're doing something useful, and your business leaders are pretty confident you AREN'T.
At the very least, they believe a good portion of your marketing dollars are wasted on activities that don't create a desirable outcome.
And like it or not, there's only one Outcome That Matters: Sales.
Brand is not an outcome. Awareness is not an outcome. Good feelz on the socialz is not an outcome.
But sales... now THAT'S an outcome.
If your business leaders truly believed every dollar spent on marketing produced an outsized increase in sales...
... they'd have to be fucking morons to cut your budget.
And yet, time after time, marketing budgets are among the first to be cut when things get dicey.
So again, what does that tell you? It tells ME that even if your marketing spend DOES produce an outsized increase in sales... you can't prove it. And there's enough doubt that your business leaders are willing to believe the opposite.
If you'd like this NOT to happen — and you're willing to do unpleasant things like work hard and stop worrying so much about what your competitors are doing — we should talk.
Email: pete [at] petehugh [dot] com
#cybersecurity #b2bmarketing
Territory Manager at SonicWall | Driving Comprehensive Cybersecurity Solutions | Supporting Partners in Securing Complex Client Environments
1moGreat article! We're lucky to have you, Christine Bartlett!