PR & Media Outreach Specialist — Cybersecurity

Guardian Digital is a cybersecurity company with more than 20 years of experience protecting businesses from sophisticated email threats.

We already create cybersecurity research, articles, technical expertise and commentary. What we need is someone who can get that expertise in front of people who don't already know us.

This is not primarily a blogging or social-media position.

Your job will be to identify journalists, editors, bloggers, industry associations, podcasts, newsletters, research organizations and other influential outlets that should know Guardian Digital — and then develop relationships with them.

We're looking for someone resourceful, persistent and comfortable reaching out to people they don't know. You'll research opportunities, identify the right contacts, develop relevant pitches, follow up and help turn Guardian Digital's expertise into media coverage, interviews, guest articles, backlinks, webinars and other third-party visibility.

What You'll Do

• Build and maintain targeted lists of journalists, editors, bloggers, newsletter publishers, podcast producers, industry associations and other relevant contacts.
• Research publications and websites covering cybersecurity, small-business technology, manufacturing, email security and related topics.
• Identify opportunities where Guardian Digital experts can provide commentary, interviews, technical insight or contributed articles.
• Pitch timely story ideas, research findings and expert commentary to journalists and editors.
• Approach relevant blogs and publications about referencing or linking to Guardian Digital research and educational resources when appropriate.
• Develop relationships with industry associations and pursue webinars, guest articles, interviews, panels and educational opportunities.
• Find podcasts and other interview opportunities that reach IT managers, security professionals and small-business decision makers — while distinguishing legitimate editorial opportunities from pay-to-play solicitations.
• Monitor current cybersecurity news and research to identify opportunities for Guardian Digital to add a useful perspective.
• Work with our technical team to turn our expertise into pitches that journalists, editors and industry organizations will actually care about.
• Help distribute Guardian Digital research, reports and articles to relevant external audiences instead of relying primarily on our own website and social channels.
• Track outreach, responses, placements, backlinks, relationships and resulting sales opportunities.

The challenge we need you to solve is:

How do we get other people to discover it, reference it, talk about it and introduce Guardian Digital to audiences we aren't reaching today?

Who We're Looking For

You may come from public relations, journalism, communications, marketing, audience development, partnerships or media.

More important than a particular degree or number of years of experience, we're looking for someone who:

• Is comfortable initiating conversations with strangers
• Can research and identify the right person to contact
• Writes concise, compelling pitches
• Follows up persistently without becoming spammy
• Understands why a journalist or editor would care about a story
• Can turn technical information into an interesting external angle
• Is highly organized and can maintain a growing contact pipeline
• Works independently and doesn't wait to be given every next step
• Is curious about cybersecurity and willing to learn

Cybersecurity, SaaS or B2B technology experience is helpful but not required. Strong writing, curiosity, persistence and judgment are more important.

What Success Looks Like

Within your first few months, we should have:

• A growing, organized database of relevant media and industry contacts
• Active relationships with journalists, editors, bloggers and associations
• Regular pitches going to carefully selected external outlets
• Guest articles, interviews, webinars, quotes or other earned-media placements
• New backlinks and referral traffic from authoritative third-party sites
• Guardian Digital experts being contacted for commentary
• Sales conversations that originate from the awareness and credibility you've helped create

How to Apply

Please don't send us a generic cover letter.

Instead, tell us briefly how you would approach this challenge:

Guardian Digital publishes cybersecurity expertise, but relatively few people outside our existing audience know about it. Identify three specific publications, organizations, journalists, blogs, podcasts or other outlets you would approach during your first month, and tell us why.

We're much more interested in how you think and execute than in seeing another generic marketing application.