Strategic Storytelling Positions Kaseya as a Household Name
Multi-year PR strategic partnership elevates Kaseya’s brand and reputation in the IT and security management solutions space.
Overview
Kaseya, a leading provider of IT and security management solutions for managed service providers (MSPs) and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), aimed to elevate awareness in key markets and enhance its reputation through high-impact storytelling.
Over the course of four years, Walker Sands evolved Kaseya’s PR strategy as the company experienced explosive growth and achieved major milestones, including securing naming rights for the iconic Miami Heat arena. The collaborative and adaptive program resulted in 700+ total media placements, establishing Kaseya as the household name for SMB IT infrastructure solutions.
total media placements
top-tier media placements
feature placements
The Challenge
Today, Kaseya is a multi-billion dollar business. However, when Kaseya initially engaged Walker Sands, it was a mid-sized IT management company looking to build a more proactive PR strategy. Despite Kaseya’s continued growth, the company faced two major hurdles during the program — a global pandemic, followed by one of the largest ransomware attacks in history. These events required our team to quickly pivot and dramatically shift our strategy to rebuild Kaseya’s reputation and position the brand as a digital transformation thought leader.
The Solution
Throughout the multi-year partnership, Walker Sands evolved Kaseya’s PR program through strategic and impactful storytelling in channel, trade and national media. From starting with an “always on” PR approach and supporting Kaseya through its explosive growth, to addressing major challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, our team focused on bolstering Kaseya’s reputation in the MSP and SMB space.
Laying the Foundation
At the start of the engagement, Walker Sands set out to help Kaseya elevate its brand awareness in broader tech and business media. By staying on top of industry news, e.g., major data breaches, we inserted Kaseya thought leaders into major conversations surrounding the evolving threat landscape. Our team also targeted channel media to deepen reporter relationships and demonstrate Kaseya’s expertise. To further increase awareness and credibility within the IT industry, we leveraged company announcements and industry awards. This proactive approach laid the foundation for a larger, more sophisticated PR strategy to establish Kaseya as a key player in the IT space.
Overcoming Challenges
While Walker Sands was laying the foundation for Kaseya’s PR efforts, the COVID-19 pandemic hit just months into our engagement, requiring a shift in messaging and strategy. To pivot, Walker Sands adopted a layered approach. We quickly tapped into important media conversations around digital transformation, offering crucial insights from Kaseya thought leaders on how SMBs could navigate the adjustment to remote work. And we regularly held informational calls with thought leaders to provide a steady stream of fresh perspectives and useful insights to media channels. Additionally, we amplified Kaseya’s creation of the Kaseya Cares fund, which provided over $10 million to MSP customers, to showcase the company’s strong brand values.
In 2021, in the midst of the global pandemic, Kaseya was hit with one of the largest ransomware attacks in history. This unprecedented attack brought the existing PR program to a sudden halt and called for another major pivot — a focus shift to crisis mitigation and rebuilding Kaseya’s reputation. Walker Sands collaborated with Kaseya’s leadership to advise them on proactive response messaging focused on eliminating confusion, relaying important updates and responding appropriately to media inquiries about the attack. At the same time, our team monitored and audited all coverage of the attack and recovery efforts to identify and clarify any factual errors or inaccurate reporting.
Once the initial crisis response was managed, Walker Sands cautiously returned to proactive media outreach, leveraging existing media relationships and leaning heavily into byline opportunities where Kaseya could have more control over the messaging.
Brand Elevation & The Kaseya Center
Following a focused effort to address the ransomware attack, Walker Sands shifted the program again to aggressively focus on making Kaseya a household name.
In 2022, Kaseya acquired its biggest competitor and began to heavily invest in its headquarters market of Miami. We leveraged these major moments and Kaseya’s explosion in growth to secure extensive coverage in top-tier and local Miami area media. Our team prioritized elevating Kaseya’s CEO, Fred Voccola, in top technology and business media outlets by mining unique and newsworthy insights through discovery calls. Additionally, we actively engaged in newsjacking major trends and issues in the tech and business communities to insert Kaseya into top-tier newsworthy conversations.
A pivotal moment in our partnership occurred when Kaseya secured the naming rights to the Miami Heat arena. Our team executed a strategic announcement strategy to amplify this major milestone. We also supported the Kaseya team in-person following the news by inviting important reporters to the Kaseya Center celebration.
The Results
Throughout the four-year partnership, Walker Sands supported Kaseya’s awareness and reputation needs, enabling Kaseya’s growth from a mid-sized IT management company to a multi-dollar enterprise. Our team secured over 700 total media placements, including 150+ top-tier placements in media outlets like The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Business Insider. Our efforts garnered more than 440 pieces of channel coverage and 250+ pieces of non-channel coverage, effectively reaching Kaseya’s key audiences of MSPs and SMBs.
During the PR program, we secured over 400 feature placements — marking a 1,000% increase YoY in the first year alone. Through proactive storytelling, crisis mitigation, timely newsjacking and brand amplification, Walker Sands successfully guided Kaseya through a period of significant growth.
