CyberReason's "content power"
to generate 8,000 leads per year
in ITmedia

Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated and complex every year. Cyber Reason provides Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions that monitor the entire endpoints within an organization to detect and counter cyber threats, rather than just providing symptomatic treatment for threats such as virus countermeasures and unauthorized access countermeasures.

The company, which started its business in Japan in March 2016, has pioneered the Japanese market from a time when the term EDR was not yet popular, and as of 2022, has won the top share in this field for four consecutive years. ing. The company is focusing on demand generation activities that utilize leads (prospective customers).

In order to acquire leads, the company not only participates in events and seminars, operates its own seminars and webinars, and provides content through owned media, but also actively sponsors events and lead generation service operated by major media. are being implemented.

One of those partners is ITmedia Inc.. In 2021, Cyber Reason used ITmedia's online lead generation service to develop marketing activities by producing 10 pieces of content in-house.

このほかアイティメディア主催のオンラインセミナー「ITmedia Security Week 2022」でも講演を行ない、合計で年間8000件のリードを獲得。最新情報を盛り込んだ良質なコンテンツを惜しみなく提供し、大量のリード獲得につなげ、国内トップシェアの座を維持し続けるベースとしている。

In this way, Cybereason's marketing features are proactive content measures. Many BtoB companies are aiming for effective lead acquisition marketing that utilizes content, but very few companies have achieved this. Cybereason is that rare successful company. Mr. Hiroki Nambu, senior marketing manager at the company's marketing division, said:

We need a variety of messages (approaches) to get as many leads as possible, and we need to create solid content to achieve our high lead acquisition goals. That's why we are building a cycle of continuous content creation.

Leads acquired through online lead generation services and ITmedia sponsored events are screened by Mr. Nambu's marketing team, and MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) are extracted. The MQLs are then telemarketed, and once an appointment is made, they are escalated to Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), who are then converted into deals.

For leads that do not reach MQLs or are no longer eligible for follow-up, MA tools will be used to conduct nurturing activities such as sending out email newsletters, introducing the latest blog posts, making offers for downloadable materials, and inviting people to events and seminars. If any leads respond to these activities, the relevant departments will be notified via Slack and follow up with telemarketing and other follow-up activities.

In such a process, Mr. Nambu focuses most on "providing quality content" and "speed after lead acquisition."

In many cases, the decision to implement a security solution is made in a relatively short period of time when an issue arises, rather than being considered over a long period of time. To accommodate this speed, we need to make sure that information is out there so that customers looking for information can find our solutions when they need them."

However, in a competitive marketplace, simply providing product information is not enough, and we need to provide the quality content that our clients need, such as knowledge of security trends. This in turn will lead to the acquisition of quality lead information." (Mr. Nambu)

Rather than meticulously flag each lead acquired, screening is conducted with a sense of speed so that follow-up can be done as quickly as possible. However, "we try to screen leads quickly and thoroughly," says Mr. Nambu, because handing out "messy leads" places an unnecessary burden on the department in charge of follow-up.

The marketing team at Cyber Reasons has four functions: one is product marketing, another is partner marketing, a team that plays a role like advertising and public relations to increase awareness, and finally, a team in charge of "demand generation" to generate leads.

The demand generation team's KGI (Key Goal Indicator) is "the amount of orders received for the projects that the marketing activities originated from. The team calculates how much pipeline is needed to achieve this KGI, calculates the number of leads needed to generate that pipeline, and establishes a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for the number of leads acquired.

Specific measures for lead acquisition include participation in events and speaking at external conferences as mentioned above, use of an external lead generation service called "content syndication," and digital advertising. According to Nambu, the starting point for content creation is a "campaign" that is designed on a quarterly basis.

We hold a seminar once a quarter, and this seminar is the start of our campaign (content creation). Basically, we will be presenting current events and security trends and solutions to them. Last year (2022), we focused on topics such as the revision of the Personal Information Protection Law and cyber attacks related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The message here will lead to sales activities, so our in-house evangelists and consultants work with the marketing team to create content such as sales materials and seminar presentation materials. We also create downloadable materials based on the seminar content and deploy them on our website and internal and external lead generation services.

The company has an established habit of discussing the "next campaign/content creation" in casual, casual conversations within the company. Instead of holding regular meetings to discuss content creation, the staff members in charge immediately begin creating materials as soon as they determine that the content is "good enough. This is another example of the need for speediness.

Mr. Nambu explains, "We already have a process in place for services such as seminar hosting cycles and lead generation, so we have a routine for creating lecture scenarios and content accordingly, and we have an internal system in place to produce about 10 pieces of content per year.

The content produced will be evaluated based on the response to the seminar, the number of downloads, the response to the business meeting, and the traffic to the article ads. Feedback is provided to improve those that can be improved, and even if the response to a theme is not good, the company uses the feedback to move on to the next content creation. This cycle is how the company continues to produce information and content that is beneficial to users.

"Security solutions have a relatively short consideration period," says Mr. Nambu, "so if you don't get new leads, your CVR will drop quickly. In fact, improving CVR is one of the biggest challenges for the company, and it is difficult to improve even if they keep putting up quality content."

That does not mean that they neglect content creation, and they are constantly paying attention to the latest trends and market developments to continue to provide information that is beneficial to users. What is the "quality" of the leads obtained from the content created with this in mind and deployed to ITmedia's lead generation services?

The leads we get from ITmedia are easy to screen. This is very helpful for us, as we need to screen leads quickly. Also, when we call them afterwards, many of them connect properly, and I think the quality of the leads is very good compared to other companies," says Mr. Nambu.

“Also, the questionnaires we conduct when acquiring leads are well-structured, so it is easy to determine the type of industry and type of business, as well as whether or not the person is from a department that is considering introducing a product. Also, some lead acquisition services require us to create new documents, which can be time-consuming, but ITmedia has fewer restrictions, so we can acquire quality leads with the content we have prepared, which is very reassuring.” (Mr. Nambu)

Currently, Cyber Reason is in the process of evolving into a "security platform" called "XDR" (Extended Detection and Response) that supports security measures to detect and respond to cyber threats from the entire enterprise system/IT services including networks, applications, and cloud services by extending "EDR," which is endpoint security. XDR (Extended Detection and Response), which supports security measures that can detect and respond to cyber threats from the entire enterprise system/IT services, including networks, applications, and cloud services. We will continue to acquire new leads by utilizing our content for further new markets.