There are few better ways to establish authority and generate qualified leads than content marketing. But it’s a slow process that often takes months to produce results.
You can’t afford to take so much time in the super competitive and fast-moving cybersecurity space. To make an impact, your content must be helpful and reach your audience at the right time and on as many relevant platforms as possible.
This is where press releases come in.
When used strategically with content marketing, press releases can be a powerful catalyst for growth, helping you get all the right media attention and stay on top of your prospects’ minds as the most reliable cybersecurity service provider.
In this article, I’ll show how cybersecurity press releases can be the X factor in your cybersecurity content marketing strategy.
Let’s dive in.
Contents
How To Leverage Press Releases In Your Cybersecurity Firm’s Content Marketing Strategy
We’re not discussing old-fashioned and overly promotional press releases that journalists love to ignore.
To stand out, your press release must be full of value with a newsworthy content angle for specialist online security publications and journalists.
When you get them right, your PRs can instantly push your best content to millions of prospects looking for cybersecurity solutions.
Here are some of the ways that will help your content strategy.
1. Get Noticed By Relevant Journalists And Media Outlets
What’s the traditional content marketing approach to getting media coverage? Cold pitching, email outreach, and praising editors for weeks on Twitter, hoping to get a brand mention.
This approach makes sense for broke one-person marketing agencies, but for cybersecurity companies looking for fast growth, investing in targeted press releases is a much more profitable option.
Studies show that 57% of journalists prefer press releases over any other form of outreach. They cover stories for a living and spend hours on different PR distribution platforms hunting for newsworthy scoops (like this press release).
This story was picked up by cybersecurity publications like HackerNoon and TechRepublic, helping our client, Hunters, get priceless media coverage.
If you’ve published a security report or a case study detailing how you protected clients from a phishing attack, why spend hours individually reaching out to editors when you can get coverage in the most influential publications with a press release like this?
It’s a win-win for you and your target journalists.
You save time by focusing on one promotional channel instead of spreading yourself too thin. While journalists get newsworthy content through reliable press releases instead of hunting for them on different platforms.
2. Get Backlinks And Drive Organic Search Traffic
You’ve probably never thought about press releases this way, but when optimized for SEO, they’re an excellent way to boost your site’s search authority and organic traffic.
Before syndicating your press release with a PR distribution platform, optimize its title and content for your target keywords. Also, include internal links to the relevant pages of your site or resources your PR wants to promote.
Then, publish the same press release on high-authority PR distribution platforms.
How does this help SEO?
You’ll get valuable backlinks from these platforms, helping you generate referral traffic and boost your search authority (even when they’re no-follow links).
Secondly, your press release has a great chance to rank for competitive keywords and Google News results when published on high-authority sites.
Let’s say you’ve published a report on the most high-profile data breaches or the potential cybersecurity threats posed by AI and promoted it via an SEO-optimized press release to different platforms.
A journalist searching for this topic might find your press release ranking at the top of Google Search results because it’s optimized for the right keywords.
Thirdly, when a journalist or media outlet covers your story, they always add a backlink to the original press release on your site or your company’s homepage.
This helps you gain powerful backlinks, and brand mentions that boost your site’s authority and help it rank for competitive keywords.
That’s precisely how Reflectiz got links and mentions from sites like HelpNetSecurity and The LastWatchDog.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Many smaller blogs and content creators pick stories from the top news sites like Cybersecurity Insiders, LHN, or HackRead. Getting coverage on any of them means you’ll get additional links and brand mentions, boosting your SEO strength.
3. Counter Negative Reputation Attacks
Imagine if, during a live sales call, a prospect searches for your brand name on Google and finds controversies, negative customer experiences, and poor reviews on the first page.
Not ideal, right?
Timely press releases can help you avoid such damaging situations for your business in several ways.
For example, a high-ranking press release in search results can quickly kill any competitor’s negative media campaign.
Instead, anyone searching for your brand will find positive stories on the most influential sites (picked up from your press releases).
For instance, when fake news about a potential cyberattack targeting Jewish people through WhatsApp messages went viral, Meta quickly published a press release clarifying the situation.
The PR instantly made it to NBC, CNN, and other top media sites, killing the rumor and saving WhatsApp from a potential loss of users.
4. Enhance Your Site’s Content Mix
You need different types of content on your site for a successful and well-rounded content marketing strategy.
Press releases can play a critical role in enhancing your content mix.
Instead of publishing them like regular blog posts, create a dedicated news, media, or press release section on your site where visitors can access your latest PRs.
For example, Norton LifeLock has a “Newsroom” section that lists its latest media coverage and official press releases.
This improves your site’s EEAT (a critical search ranking factor) and maintains content freshness.
Plus, it’s a great source of new content ideas for your blog and social media profiles. For example, if you debunk a competitor’s propaganda with a press release, why not repurpose it in a blog post sharing your thoughts about the issue or a YouTube or Facebook video explaining it?
Again, Norton LifeLock’s blog is a good example because they repurpose many of their press releases into multiple articles and opinion pieces.
So, don’t let your press releases sit quietly on a PR distribution platform or an isolated page of your website. Instead, keep it fresh by covering the story from new angles and getting the maximum benefit for your content strategy.
5. Find Partnership Opportunities
Successful cybersecurity content marketing strategies leverage partnerships with complementing brands, organizations, and publications to reach new audiences and create better content.
Press releases can play a vital role in achieving this goal.
For example, announcing your latest online security survey or incident report through a press release can catch a mainstream podcaster’s attention or land you an interview with a media outlet.
Leading content creators can invite you to co-host webinars or write opinion pieces sharing the details of your study for specific use cases.
It only happens when you expose your work to the world, share your achievements, and promote your services using different marketing strategies, including press releases.
Include Press Releases In Your Cybersecurity Marketing Plans
Just because press releases are a paid marketing channel doesn’t mean they must be overly promotional and salesy.
Instead, create them like any high-quality content for your blog or organic marketing campaigns. Think from a journalist’s perspective and make your PR newsworthy for them.
Create a benefit-driven title, discuss the meat of your new item first, include images, and use credible data to back your claims.
When you show journalists what they’ll gain by covering your story, you automatically get all the content marketing benefits of using press releases.