National holidays and awareness months are a gift for marketers. They basically create the campaign themselves. October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month which creates the perfect situation to ramp up efforts and grab the attention of your audiences. There are several ways you can use awareness holidays to your advantage. For this one specifically, there are quite a few online resources available with everything from posters to workbooks. Beyond that, here are a few more ways to use National Cyber Security Awareness month to your advantage.

First of all, you could host an event. Depending on your availability you could start small by inviting clients and possible referrals. Make learning fun by incorporating games and prizes. Use this as a way to market to potential clients by giving away things with your logo on it. You could even turn this into a team building experience and take your employees to an escape room. All of these things will reinforce the importance of cybersecurity and remind everyone to keep up the good work. If this doesn’t work for you, you can attend a conference or a summit. These are extremely helpful. Not only will networking help in furthering your business, but you will probably learn something valuable to bring back to the office.

Secondly, use social media. This should go without saying, but awareness campaigns and holidays need to be utilized on social media. You can easily throw together infographics, photos and written content. You may even invest in social media ads since this particular awareness month will most likely be trending. Make sure to include the call to actions on each one, perhaps even a landing page so potential clients can contact you. Then, of course, use hashtags! For this month, using hashtags such as #ncsam #cybersecurity #awareness will aid in who discovers your information. They will also keep you organized in your campaign efforts.

Third, blog your heart out. As you may know, blogs have more purpose than just an informative piece of written communication. Blogs also act as a form of SEO on your website, content for social media and is a springboard for the campaign. Find blog topics that are popular on google and make a small list of keywords to use in each blog. Topics can range from password security to different ways hackers can infiltrate data as well as how to sell BDR’s or marketing services. The is an endless possibility of topics to write about and incorporate into social media. The more engagement you get, the better, so be sure to keep things interesting.

Finally, get the word out! It doesn’t matter too much exactly how you get the word out, it’s just important that you do. Not only do you want to take advantage of the ease of marketing for a national holiday, but you definitely want your clients and the public to be informed about this important month and know how to protect themselves and their businesses. Cybersecurity is not a laughing matter, but you can make the reminder resonate with a little effort.