What’s Inside:
- What is propensity modeling?
- How does propensity modeling work?
- Benefits of using propensity modeling for cybersecurity marketers
- Four steps to deploy propensity modeling
- Use case examples
- Best practices in cybersecurity marketing
- Why use a cybersecurity marketing agency?
- How a cybersecurity marketing agency can optimize results
In cybersecurity, where trust is paramount, customer relationships are foundational to success. That’s why so many cybersecurity marketers turn to data-driven marketing strategies to reach out to target audiences and build greater trust.
In marketing, focusing on an audience’s ‘propensity to buy’ plays an important role. Propensity — from Latin roots ‘to be inclined to’ — describes the likelihood of something happening. For modern cybersecurity marketers, propensity modeling is a powerful tool to help identify and target prospects and customers, reduce churn, and personalize marketing campaigns. Read on to learn everything you need to know about propensity modeling, from its benefits, to how it works, how to deploy it, and the ways a cybersecurity marketing agency can help you leverage its power.
What is Propensity Modeling?
Built by analyzing historical data on customer behavior, such as past purchases, website interactions, and engagement with marketing campaigns, propensity modeling can help improve customer retention rates and save money. At its core, propensity modeling is a statistical technique used to predict the likelihood of a customer taking a certain action, such as purchasing a product, or churning away from your service. ‘Churn’ occurs when a customer stops using your product or service. In cybersecurity marketing, churning typically happens because:
- The customer is no longer satisfied with a product or service.
- The customer has found a better alternative.
- The customer no longer needs the product or service.
Churn can be a costly challenge to overcome. To avoid losing business, along with valuable customer relationships, propensity models can help you identify customers at risk of churning, so you can take steps to prevent that from happening. For example, a cybersecurity company could use propensity modeling to identify customers who have not used their product or service in a certain period of time. The company could then reach out to those customers and offer additional support or incentives to keep them using the product or service.
By using propensity modeling to prevent churn, cybersecurity companies typically improve their customer retention rates and save money.
How Does Propensity Modeling Work?
Propensity models identify the factors that are most correlated with customer behavior. These factors may include demographic information, website behavior, engagement with marketing campaigns, and past purchase history. Once the most important factors have been identified, the propensity model is trained on a historical dataset of customer behavior.
Propensity models identify the factors that are most correlated with customer behavior. These factors may include demographic information, website behavior, engagement with marketing campaigns, and past purchase history. Once the most important factors have been identified, the propensity model is trained on a historical dataset of customer behavior.
Once the model is trained, it can be used to predict the likelihood of a customer taking a certain action. For example, you could use a propensity model to predict the likelihood of a prospect purchasing a cybersecurity product or service, or the likelihood of a customer churning from your service.
Benefits of Using Propensity Modeling for Cybersecurity Marketing
Propensity modeling provides unique benefits for cybersecurity marketers, including:
- Increased lead generation: Propensity modeling can help you identify and target the prospects most likely to be interested in your cybersecurity products or services. This can lead to increased lead generation and improved sales results.
- Reduced customer churn: Propensity modeling can also help you identify customers at risk of churning. This allows you to take proactive steps to retain those customers, by offering special discounts or promotions, for example.
- Personalized marketing campaigns: Propensity modeling can be used to segment your customer base and personalize your marketing campaigns, which can lead to improved engagement and higher conversion rates.
- Improved marketing campaign effectiveness: Propensity modeling can be used to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns by tracking your audience’s propensity to buy. This information can be used to improve the effectiveness of campaigns over time.
SUMMARY
Bottom-Line Benefits
You can use propensity modeling to:
- Identify your most valuable customers
- Segment your customer base and carefully target marketing messages
- Personalize your customers’ experience
- Provide timely and relevant support to customers
- Build long-term customer relationships
Four Steps to Deploy Propensity Modeling
Here are the steps needed to successfully implement propensity modeling in your cybersecurity marketing plan:
Collect the right data. The quality and accuracy of a propensity model will depend on the quality and accuracy of data used to build it. You should collect data on a variety of factors, such as:
- Demographic information such as company size, industry, job title
- Website behavior (e.g., pages visited, time spent on site, forms submitted)
- Engagement with marketing campaigns (emails opened, links clicked)
- Past purchase history
Choose the right propensity modeling tool. There are a variety of propensity modeling tools available, both commercial and open-source. Choose a tool that is appropriate for your needs and budget.
Build and evaluate your propensity model. Once you have chosen a tool, you can start building your propensity model. This process will involve training the model on your historical data. Once the model is trained, you can evaluate its performance on a held-out test set.
Use your propensity model to target and engage prospects and customers. Once you have a trained and evaluated propensity model, you can start using it to target and engage prospects and customers. For example, you could use your propensity model to:
- Identify high-value prospects for lead generation campaigns
- Segment your customer base for targeted marketing campaigns
- Send personalized email messages and offers to prospects and customers
Use Case Examples
Here are a few examples that highlight how cybersecurity companies are using propensity modeling to help achieve success:
Use Case 1: A cybersecurity solutions provider used propensity modeling to identify and target high-value prospects for a new endpoint security solution. The company was able to increase lead generation by 20% and overall sales by 15%.
Use Case 2: A cybersecurity company used propensity modeling to identify customers at risk of churning. The company was able to reduce its customer churn rate by 10%. They did this by offering at-risk customers special discounts and promotions.
Use Case 3: A cybersecurity company used propensity modeling to segment its customer base and personalize its marketing campaigns. This company was able to increase email open rates by 15% and click-through rates by 20%.
Propensity Modeling Best Practices in Cybersecurity Marketing
Here are a few best practices for using propensity modeling in cybersecurity marketing:
- Use high-quality data. The quality and accuracy of your propensity model will depend on the quality and accuracy of the data you use to build it. Make sure to collect data from a variety of sources and to clean and prepare the data before using it to build your model.
- Choose the right tool. There are a variety of propensity modeling tools available, both commercial and open-source. Choose a tool that is appropriate for your needs and budget. Some factors to consider when choosing a tool include the size and complexity of your dataset, the types of models you want to build, and the level of support you need.
- Evaluate the model regularly. Propensity models can become outdated over time as customer behavior changes. It is important to regularly evaluate your model to ensure that it is still performing well. You can do this by tracking its performance on a held-out test set or by using a cross-validation technique.
- Use the model to personalize your marketing. Propensity modeling can be used to personalize your marketing campaigns by targeting different messages to different customers based on their likelihood to take a certain action. For example, you could send different emails to customers who are at risk of churning than to customers who are likely to purchase a new product.
- Integrate propensity modeling with other marketing strategies. Propensity modeling can be used to improve the effectiveness of other marketing strategies, such as content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing. For example, you could use propensity modeling to identify the customers who are most likely to engage with your content on social media.
Why Use a Cybersecurity Marketing Agency for Propensity Modeling?
Cybersecurity marketing agencies provide expertise and experience to help you implement and optimize propensity modeling. They can help you collect the right data, choose the right tool, and build and evaluate your propensity model.
In addition, cybersecurity marketing agencies can help you use a propensity model to target and engage prospects and customers to build stronger customer relationships. They can also help you measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and make necessary adjustments to improve your results over time.
Cybersecurity marketing agencies provide expertise and experience to help you implement and optimize propensity modeling. They can help you collect the right data, choose the right tool, and build and evaluate your propensity model.
In addition, cybersecurity marketing agencies can help you use a propensity model to target and engage prospects and customers to build stronger customer relationships. They can also help you measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and make necessary adjustments to improve your results over time.
How a Cybersecurity Marketing Agency Can Help Optimize Results
Working with a full-service cybersecurity marketing agency you can:
- Accelerate your time to results. A full-service agency has the expertise and resources to get your propensity modeling campaigns up and running quickly. They can also help you choose the right tools and data sources, and build and optimize your models.
- Get the most out of your data. A full-service agency can analyze your data and identify the patterns and trends that can help improve your propensity modeling campaigns. They can also help segment your audience and personalize your marketing messages accordingly.
- Scale your campaigns. As business grows, it’s easy to scale your propensity modeling campaigns with help from a full-service agency. They can help manage your campaigns across multiple channels and track your results in real-time.
Ultimately, you can avoid dreaded outcomes, such as a rising churn rate. Your customers need to feel confident that, as their cybersecurity provider, you have their best interests at heart. They need to know they are using the latest and most effective technologies to protect their valuable information. This is why propensity modeling is such a powerful tool for cybersecurity marketers to use in strengthening customer relationships.
By following our advice and leveraging the power of propensity modeling, cybersecurity marketers can achieve their loftiest goals — building stronger customer relationships to help increase sales, strengthen customer loyalty, and provide a clear competitive advantage.
If you’re not already using propensity modeling in your marketing plans today, now is the time to start.
CyberTheory CTA: It all boils down to the power of relationships, and the role propensity modeling plays in strengthening your bond with customers. Contact us today to help you better leverage propensity modeling. Together, we can create a cybersecurity industry in which customers feel safe and secure, now and in the future.
