In the first of a three-part series titled “Where the Money Works”, President of Maize Marketing Kevin Friedman provides advice on how to market well within the security industry.
Imagine a scene from a major industry trade show. A manufacturer invests heavily in a booth, including truss, monitors, demo stations, giveaways and badge scanners at every corner.
The team returns home tired, with around four hundred scans to show for their efforts.
Six months later, a budget meeting finally asks the tough question: how many of those scans led to meaningful conversations?
The honest answer is usually only a few, and the deals closed that year often originated elsewhere – through a dinner, a referral or an experienced integrator who had trusted the company for years.
Throughout my career in marketing for security manufacturers and tech companies, I see a similar pattern each year.
The issue is rarely about lack of effort or insufficient budget. Usually, the real problem is that the funds are directed toward the wrong areas, often because the strategy was borrowed from an industry unlike ours.
Security is fundamentally a trust-based industry, and all purchasing behaviors stem from that core.
An end user is risking their people, facilities and sometimes their career with each purchase, while the integrator advising them is risking their reputation, built over years of installations.
The sales process often takes months or even years, involving multiple channels – from manufacturer to integrator to end user – where relationships matter more than simple transactions.
Most marketing strategies weren’t built for this reality. They were meant for quick software trials and e-commerce, where a single click can rapidly convert into a customer.
When these methods are used in security, they often result in activities like impressions, clicks and badge scans that don’t translate into real meetings.
Since no one in this field prefers to buy from unfamiliar sources, marketing’s main goal is to prevent you from being perceived as a stranger.
The waste tends to show up in a few familiar places. Generic demand-generation advertising is the most common because paid clicks make sense for impulse purchases but not for considered ones.
A buyer who is nine months from a decision does not convert on a landing page.
If you cannot name exactly who you are staying in front of and why, that spend is rented attention that leaves no residue.
Gated content is its close cousin: the white-paper-behind-a-form play produces a list of people who wanted a PDF rather than a conversation, and the automated follow-up sequence that follows usually annoys the very people you were hoping to win.
Trade shows warrant their own category in waste management, but not because the shows are inherently problematic.
The booth alone isn’t the entire strategy. These events last three days, bringing the whole industry together in one location.
Companies that plan early, booking their spots before the doors open and engaging with customers, editors, partners and prospects, can secure a winning position from a single table.
Those that wait to scan badges often pay a premium for foot traffic.
Additionally, rebranding efforts occasionally replace trusted names and logos that have been familiar for twenty years, simply because they seem outdated to someone inside the industry.
In a trust-based business, familiarity is a valuable asset that should be used wisely.
Where should the investment go instead? Begin with proof, stories told in your customers’ own words.
A detailed case study featuring a real customer’s experience and results surpasses nearly any advertisement, as it allows a peer to do the selling.
Just one compelling story each quarter can have more impact than numerous brochures.
Next, focus on the publications and awards your audience already trusts.
Earned media offers compounded benefits unlike paid media: it provides your sales team and channel partners with valuable content to share, and third-party validation makes future pitches, hiring and deals easier to close.
In a skeptical industry, third-party endorsements are the most valuable currency.
The other half of the answer is people. Buyers are more influenced by individuals than logos, and a leader who regularly appears in trade press, LinkedIn and conference panels builds a recognition that no advertising spend can buy.
When a company’s reputation hinges on its people, every marketing dollar becomes more effective.
This highlights an important point: maintaining a steady presence is more impactful than short-term campaigns.
By making a modest, consistent investment in key venues throughout the year, you’ll build trust over time, something that can’t be achieved with just a big push in a single quarter.
This approach fosters long-term relationships and steady growth.
All of this boils down to one filter you can apply to any line item in your marketing budget: does this make the right people trust us more, or does it just make us busier?
Strangers do not sell security solutions in this industry. Familiar, credible companies get the meeting, and the meeting is where the business actually gets done.
So, before you sign off on next year’s plan, it is worth asking the uncomfortable question about last year’s: which dollars created trust, and which ones just created activity?
Next in this series: trade show strategy, and what actually pays off at GSX and ISC West beyond the booth.
About the Author
Kevin Friedman is President of Maize Marketing, a B2B agency that turns marketing into a growth engine for security and technology companies through brand positioning, public relations, content, and demand generation. Find him on LinkedIn here.