Now is the time for cybersecurity professionals to get in front with their message.
Another potentially devastating cyberattack was reported in April—this time against government contractor Parker Hannifin.
With cyberattacks rapidly escalating across the board, Stacy Bostjanick of the US Department of Defense (DoD) shared an updated rollout schedule for their new cybersecurity framework, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). Contractors now have little less than a year to become compliant.
In this post, I’ll introduce my “reach and teach” marketing method for compliance professionals who want to help those contractors—and the broader community—achieve a cybersecurity transformation in time for the deadline.
It starts with you, the expert. You must have something valuable to offer before you reach out. Something important that your audience is looking for. Information that you can …
Teach
If you are like most cybersecurity experts and compliance professionals, you spend a lot of time asking questions and listening to clients before showing them how to do their process better. In other words, you already are an excellent teacher.
Could the conversations you have one-on-one about managing their cybersecurity risk be turned into teaching materials for a much larger audience?
I would say yes. Why not? The first topic you cover could be self-attestation, the most controversial component of NIST, and now CMMC 2.0. You might answer the question: Is it really cheaper to self-attest than to hire an auditor?
You and I both know that most small businesses are not savvy enough about their cybersecurity practices and policies to understand whether there are any gaps. How can they sign off on a self-attestation with any degree of confidence?
You can give them that confidence. Or show them how to get it. You can teach them what to do, and what not to do, and point them in the right direction.
An excellent source for popular questions is the website Answer The Public (answerthepublic.com), which harvests questions around a given topic.
To use the search feature, enter “CMMC” into the bar, for example. Seconds later, you can download a mind map of all recent queries on the term, such as:
- What are the CMMC requirements?
- What are the CMMC levels?
- How much does CMMC certification cost?
Because these are the questions people are most interested in, it stands to reason that anyone who designs teaching material around these questions will draw attention.
To be clear, I’m talking about teaching for free. You certainly may have paid courses—but you need free materials to be successful with the “reach and teach” methodology.
Free teaching gives you the biggest stage. Free teaching lets you connect directly with future clients wherever they are. They may not be buyers today, but once they are ready to make a purchasing decision, they will know whom to call.
Teaching Platforms
There are many teaching platforms available to you for little to no cost. None of these is anything new. But now is the time to challenge yourself. Do you currently have yourself scheduled on at least one?
Pick a platform from which you can teach (these are all virtual/remote examples):
- Webinar
- Guest podcast appearance
- Blog post
- Executive briefing
- Workshop
Reach
The other half of the equation is reach. Once you have something valuable to offer, you can set up an attractive announcement about it and reach people with it.
Reaching is not always free. You may have to pay for software, advertising or sponsorships. And even free components such as email and social media require the deployment of creative resources to make them work.
But reaching is the only way prospective clients will ever know what you have to teach them. You will reach into their email inbox or physical mailbox. Reach into their social media feed. Reach into their Google search. And reach into their association’s sponsorship bag full of door prizes.
They won’t be able to miss your message.
Reaching Platforms:
Again, none of these will be new to you. But how many of these reach tools are you currently utilizing today?
Pick a platform from which you can reach people this month:
- Social media
- Google ads
- Sponsorships
- Physical mailing
I encourage you to take this assignment seriously. Pick one teaching platform and one reaching platform. That’s all you need to get started. Decide which questions you will answer. Craft your teaching program. Then get your message out there.
In future posts, I will explore each of the components of reach and teach, with fresh ideas for how compliance leaders can utilize digital marketing techniques to reach and teach their future clients. Until then, remember:
The best clients are those who are willing to be led.
The best leaders are those who are willing to teach.
About the author: Rob Macdonald is president of PlumDIBS (plumdibs.com) a content marketing company that helps compliance organizations “reach and teach” since 1998. He is past president of the American Marketing Association, Baltimore Chapter, has been an award-winning marketing columnist for the Baltimore Business Journal and taught at Columbia College in Chicago.