The Best Way to Educate Your Employees in Cybersecurity—Create a Campaign
Marketing campaigns work, and for a very good reason. They are centred on building rapport with the end-user by offering them engaging and useful content, incentive bonuses and use the power of reinforcement and trigger words to bring them on board. In contrast, cybersecurity programs that most businesses implement are usually a one-time-a-year ceremony, a short lecture incorporating scare tactics, or a mandatory program that is as interesting as a blank sheet of paper.
So what now? Do I spend thousands of dollars on cybersecurity? You may ask incredulously.
Well, no. That is not the point.
The point is that we need to incorporate the same approach towards offering cybersecurity education to the employees as we use to attract customers.
Just imagine what would happen if you used the same tactics for a marketing campaign as you do for a cybersecurity education program—your churn rate would be alarming.
Why Treat Cybersecurity Education as a Marketing Campaign?
The human factor is the common denominator in both cases. For both brand awareness and cybersecurity education campaigns, the end user is a group of individuals. If you appeal to that human factor in the language that they are comfortable with, you’re more likely to get through them and have a positive reaction. If you use a tactic that is boring, uneventful, or just plain condescending, you can’t expect them to understand the importance of the message that you’re trying to deliver.
Treating cybersecurity education like a marketing campaign ensures that your employees are engaged. And once they are engaged, it is easier to offer them crumbs and nuggets of information in digestible sources that they would happily chomp on. Deliver the same message in a monotonous tone in a meeting and watch how quickly the people will forget about it.
What to Incorporate in a Cybersecurity Education Campaign?
The best ways to make sure that your cybersecurity education campaign is not the clichéd bore everyone expects it to be, use the following:
Roadshows
Cybersecurity roadshows are a great way to kickstart a cybersecurity awareness campaign—only if you do it right. Use interactive material to bring everyone onboard.
Fun, interactive programs
Whenever you think of cybersecurity, doesn’t it pop an image of a middle-aged man droning about the dangers in an inexpressive tone in your mind? Well, that’s because it often is the case in reality.
If you’re not investing in cybersecurity programs that are fun, don’t bother investing anyway. Boring programs won’t work—just like your old schoolteacher that made even the most interesting stories a headache.
Cybersecurity merchandise with messages
Stickers, mouse pads, wallpapers that gently remind users to take simple security measures in their daily tasks is a great way to imprint the message in the mind, make it a habit, and then second nature. Reinforcing a message is a timeless strategy, and it works. Take a page from Aristotle, “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you just told them”.
Graystone International offers fun, engaging and interactive cybersecurity education programs that you can use for your company. We can tailor them as per your company needs, and make sure everyone learns in a fun environment so that the message sticks. Talk to our experts today!
