Cyber PR Can Only Get You So Far

A few years ago, I asked three different cybersecurity PR agencies to send over the media lists they’d use for a launch. Lined up side by side, they showed the same reporters, the same outlets, the same “exclusive” angles. That confirmed what I’d suspected about what a cyber PR retainer really delivers and it’s why I now tell every marketing leader to stop expecting public relations magic, especially at a startup.

There are better ways to earn long-term publicity at a higher ROI, and the most powerful is a guided video experience, where a journalist acting as your coach, gets you to open up about the work you actually care about. That’s what wins over today’s cybersecurity buyers, who research on their own time and want to dig into the people behind the product. At smaller firms, those are usually one and the same.

Hiring an agency can look smarter than building a booth at RSAC. IT-Harvest tracks more than 3,800 active cybersecurity vendors, and only about 10% make the RSAC expo floor in a given year. For a small company, the booth and its operational costs rarely feel justified especially against big players staging ’50s diners, boxing robots, and mini clothing stores.

PR agencies lean on exactly the cost burden of in-person events to put you on an “affordable” retainer: skip the booth, we’ll get you into the trades instead. Given how the market actually works, it’s an upward climb. If you’re not one of the 30 or so names a CISO can rattle off from memory, a reporter has little reason to write about you over a company with a bigger round, a splashier product, or a fresh breach to comment on.

And even when you land a mention, the buyer has usually decided already. 6Sense found that 95% of the time, the vendor that eventually wins was already on the buyer’s day-one shortlist. A press hit rarely puts an unknown name on that list.

PR keeps your message fragmented across other people’s outlets, where it can never snowball into something bigger.

Buyers are educating themselves quietly, long before anyone picks up the phone — Gartner puts roughly 80% of the journey at no direct vendor contact at all. And in a 2025 survey, 93% of B2B buyers said brands that invest in original research earn more of their trust. As one founder told me recently: “I’ve never closed a deal because of a single press mention. I’ve closed plenty because a buyer watched me explain my thinking for twenty minutes.”

That’s the one asset a self-directed buyer can find, watch, and forward on their own schedule. A studio interview turns your practitioners into teachers, not pitchmen. When an expert simplifies a vulnerability, walks through a 48-hour ransomware recovery, or breaks down a fresh exploit the day it drops, they’re promoting an idea, not themselves.

ISMG.Studio is powered by our Content Intelligence & AI Innovation team’s suite of advanced agents and tools, designed to maximize the impact and longevity of your content experiences.

It’s evergreen, it’s yours forever, and with our PRISM clipping tool, one recorded conversation multiplies into dozens of shareable moments that keep working long after a press hit would have scrolled off the feed.

None of this discredits PR. A good agency nurtures real relationships, lands the occasional high-value story, and keeps you ready to comment when news breaks. The mistake was never hiring one but over-indexing on its effectiveness. When you chase the same reporters as everyone else, you’re paying a premium for a commodity while starving the assets that build durable equity.

So right-size the line item and vet hard. You should ensure the PR team includes former cybersecurity pros, then test them: ask them to explain EDR vs. XDR vs. MDR back to you on the spot (or whatever is relevant to your product category); ask to see a real, anonymized media list from a recent client, ask their realistic hit rate, not their impression counts; and ask to speak with one client who left. That last conversation will tell you the most.

If you’re new to cybersecurity videos and the studio interview format, I welcome you to check out some of my earlier pieces. Across these ISMG Studio blogs, I lay out a practical playbook for cybersecurity video and thought leadership—everything I’ve learned about getting real experts on camera and turning their expertise into content that actually moves buyers.

• Authenticity beats polish, and there’s a better beauty standard for cybersecurity video—faceless formats and the Darknet Diaries podcast prove that substance, not on-camera charisma, builds trust.
• The speakers who actually generate pipeline transfer emotion, adopt a service mindset, and resist overteaching, which is what separateshigh-performing cybersecurity presenters from the merely informative.
• Structured, comparative questions reveal how founders actually think rather than what they believe—the heart of learning to interview cybersecurity founders like a journalist.
• At events like RSA and Black Hat, expert alignment and third-party validation outlast hype, which is why I weigh sensationalism against substance in conference coverage.
• Analogies and plain language keep jargon from alienating viewers, so I dig into simplifying technical concepts for cybersecurity videos.
• Mindlessly chopping long videos into clips produces lackluster content, so I offer a smarter approach to the art of cybersecurity video repurposing.
• Winning over skeptical, camera-shy experts is its own challenge, which is why I get into producing cybersecurity videos in hostile environments.

Together, I’m arguing that in a crowded, AI-saturated market, credible human voices and thoughtful video win attention and trust. The most powerful asset in cybersecurity marketing isn’t a mention you’re renting but the expertise you already own—so build the assets that compound before you sink half your budget into chasing the same reporters as everyone else.

References

1. 3,800+ active vendors / ~10% at RSAC — Richard Stiennon, IT-Harvest, “RSAC 2025” (382 of 3,818 active vendors exhibiting). https://stiennon.substack.com/p/rsac-2025
2. 95% of winners already on the day-one shortlist — 6Sense, 2025, via Corporate Visions. https://corporatevisions.com/blog/b2b-buying-behavior-statistics-trends/
3. ~80% of the buying journey without direct vendor contact — Gartner/Forrester research summary. https://enaibld.com/resources/buyer-behavior-and-the-modern-sales-cycle/gartner-forrester-research-confident-misunderstanding-b2b-buying/
4. 93% say original research earns more trust — Redpoint Insights, “Content That Converts: 2025 B2B Buyer Insights.” https://redpointinsights.com/content-that-converts-2025-b2b-buyer-insights/