Integrated communications drive brand awareness and engagement for DefenseStorm

The number of cyberattacks against financial institutions is rapidly increasing, with no end in sight. Thankfully, companies like DefenseStorm are working day-in and day-out to combat these bad actors and ensure a financial institution’s cyber safety and soundness is not compromised.

DefenseStorm’s cybersecurity, cybercompliance and cyberfraud solutions are tailor-made for financial institutions. Not only do they protect critical systems and networks, its technology also simplifies compliance reporting and oversight, which if you happen to work in financial services, is difficult enough already.

With the significant attention to cybersecurity from financial services executives, their customers and regulators, DefenseStorm recognized this as an opportunity to engage in the conversation, but knew it had to play it cool. When everyone else is shouting about their products and services, the answer cannot be to shout louder. You have to shout smarter!

That is why the FinTech challenged Arketi to develop an integrated communications campaign designed to demonstrate its deep cybersecurity expertise and engage financial institutions with its product offerings.

Arketi and DefenseStorm launched our effort with a half-day “Unearth” Workshop to discuss audience personas, industry perspectives and trends, immediate or near-term opportunities, available resources, spokespeople and everything in between.

We then conducted our own due diligence by identifying keystone conferences, awards, industry and national media targets, editorial calendars and social media trends. We also audited DefenseStorm’s competitors and reviewed the FinTech’s own website to better understand its user experience, existing content and analytics.

These exercises are essential to our work, but there was something missing: a hook. What about DefenseStorm’s technology, experience, knowledge or history would make the difference when engaging with media, industry professionals or the public? What was the differentiator?

We dug ourselves in, went back to our notes and compared them to the stories and narratives being told within the national cybersecurity conversation. It was clear – there were gaps to be filled, and DefenseStorm had the expertise to offer a compelling response.

Arketi is known for its BIG IDEAS…and our goals are no different. DefenseStorm challenged us to identify some ambitious goals for our integrated communications campaign, and we were happy to oblige with six 12-month KPIs:

1. Generate 20 earned media placements with key industry publications
2. Earn eight local or industry awards
3. Secure six speaking engagements
4. Develop and publish one social media post per week on each company platform
5. Increase new website traffic by 25%
6. Develop six pieces of give-and-get content, gated assets for an opt-in database

Arketi identified areas where DefenseStorm could offer meaningful insight and guidance for cybersecurity and financial service professionals. These trends were timely, relevant and, above all, interesting for those professionals to learn and read about! They were problems financial institutions faced every day, including:

1. The Cybersecurity Skills Gap – Reimagining traditional talent channels by hiring and recruiting outside conventional fields to enable a more diverse, inclusive cybersecurity workforce.
2. Redefining Cyber Risk – Financial institutions all too often silo cybersecurity within one department. It is time for institutions to look at it like all other risk management activities.
3. Proactive Threat Detectionand Deterrence – DefenseStorm’s new CyberFraud offering enabled financial institutions to expand their security capabilities with threat detection for online banking, mobile banking and internal systems to provide real-time actionable alerts for both external and internal attacks.

We continued our media relations campaign to secure a variety of podcast interviews, contributed articles and media engagements for DefenseStorm’s spokespeople. The result? A total of 39 media placements, double our original target, including features with prestigious publications such as BAI Banking Strategies, CU Business and Bank Business.

And, while we always love to see our clients’ names in print, it was just the start. To position DefenseStorm as the leading provider of cybersecurity management platforms for financial institutions, we recognized the need for the company to have a strong presence at industry conferences, and in lists and awards.

Awards and conference presentations are rarely guaranteed, but an interesting topic and compelling narrative can only help your chances. That is why we secured 20-plus awards and speaking opportunities for DefenseStorm using our unique story angles. Seven more than forecast and 50% above target, DefenseStorm was not only named one of Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies, it was also invited to speak at two National Association of Federal Credit Unions conferences, FinTech South and the Georgia Technology Summit.

On social, our team elevated DefenseStorm’s presence by producing a steady stream of quality content, including both static and animated graphics on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. We developed an average of more than two posts per day – an astounding rate that resulted in a triple-digit increase in engagement across all channels.

One thing to keep in mind: all this activity was designed to drive visitors to DefenseStorm’s website, so it needed to be an exceptional experience. To align with our campaign, we wove in messaging to showcase DefenseStorm’s new products, highlighted the company as a great place to work and created multiple pieces of downloadable content for visitors. This drove a 60% increase in traffic, with visitors who stayed longer and bounced less.

Our combined integrated communications campaign netted DefenseStorm a strong pipeline of new prospects, broader industry awareness and new, creative ideas for how to advance our campaign heading into 2022.

Not to mention, our campaign took home the night’s top honor at last year’s PRSA Georgia Phoenix Awards, earning the Best of Phoenix Award for our exceptional work. It was also recognized in the Marketing – Business to Business – Products and Integrated Communications – Business to Business categories.