Berkman strike, by M&R Glasgow

Berkman strike, by M&R Glasgow

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt… three very dirty words when pushing products at security and IT professionals. Commonly known as FUD, it’s one of the techniques that sales and marketing folks use to create discomfort in their targets. If I can highlight a serious problem to you (and make you think that you have this problem), I might be able to sell you my solution that will make that problem go away.

In the information security product space, one of the biggest claims that vendors make is that security breaches impact your brand’s value. I once said that in front of the CFO of a large retail establishment and was quickly called out for making such a general statement (he called out my FUD spreading) and asked for evidence (of which I had none).

Never again.

In the last several years, we’ve seen a string of retail breaches. We’ve also still heard this whole underlying theme of consumers not wanting to do business with companies that lost their data. Last year, along with MAC, I performed some research to determine how consumers react to breaches. Specifically, do they change their spending behaviors if you have a breach.

Check out the paper here for more insights, and get ready to start altering your marketing materials!

This post originally appeared on BrandenWilliams.com.

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