Palo Alto Networks
Secure From Every Angle
The anchor e-book for Palo Alto Networks’ platform consolidation story, built on a survey of 1,300 C-suite leaders.
- influenced pipeline
- $10M
- MQLs
- 2,500+
- pipeline per MQL, approx.
- $4,000
The campaign
Better Together was Palo Alto Networks’ go-to-market campaign for cybersecurity consolidation, sometimes called platformization: the argument that enterprises get better security outcomes from an integrated platform than from a stack of point products. Our Cross Portfolio team was new and didn’t have a marquee asset yet. This e-book became it. While I wrote the e-book, an external vendor produced the campaign’s supporting blogs, and the full set launched with a demand generation and social strategy.
Why it mattered
Consolidation was a new term, coined by Gartner, that most security audiences didn’t yet understand, and it runs against a belief many security leaders hold: that the best product in each category beats a single vendor. The campaign needed one authoritative piece that explained the idea to C-level buyers and made the case in terms of their own risk.
How it was built
Research
I aligned with our product marketing manager on the messaging guide: how we wanted to present the platform and which pain points mattered most to our C-level persona. I anchored the argument in Palo Alto Networks’ What’s Next in Cyber survey of 1,300 C-suite leaders: 96% had experienced a breach, and the average large enterprise ran 31.5 security tools.
Concept
With the campaign team, I mapped the e-book to the overall go-to-market plan: primary distribution channels, funnel stages, and budget. The structure moves from three market trends to three areas of opportunity, each laid out as a risk-and-solution pair, before the platform appears.
Writing
I drafted the outline and the e-book from our consolidation story, then took both through multiple review cycles with our product marketing manager, senior product marketing manager, senior content strategist, and VP of Brand.
Design and launch
We went from kickoff to publication in three months, launching the e-book alongside its demand generation and social programs.
Results
The e-book generated more than 2,500 MQLs and influenced $10M in pipeline, and the wider Better Together campaign beat its MQL target by 25% and its traffic target by 65%. The companion explainer, Cybersecurity Consolidation, drew 5,000 page views in its first two weeks and still ranks #1 on Google for “cybersecurity consolidation.”