With new communication options popping up monthly, email may look old fashioned to some. But five decades on, email is still the leading form of electronic communication. In fact, its use only continues to grow.
More than 280 billion email messages were exchanged globally in 2018, and almost 350 billion are forecast by 2023. However, the way users interact with email is expected to change. Accessing email on mobile devices will get even more popular, as well as enterprise and consumer IoT devices using email communication.
Email security was already a complex problem, but the growing diversity of endpoint devices used to interact with email services just makes it more complicated. You probably have questions.
What solutions for email security best protect clients from the many different types of email exploits? And how do you even convince skeptical clients that they need more email security in the first place?
Don’t worry, we have answers.
Email remains an important target for hackers
The popularity of an IT service is also a measure of how enticing a target it is for cybercriminals. You can bet that if the IT channel and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) know email will remain an essential service for years to come, hackers know it too.
Even a single Business Email Compromise (BEC), as the FBI calls them, can be devastating. Hackers have spent years finding new, effective attack vectors, in addition to optimizing proven social engineering attacks. Relying mostly on endpoint security will not remain an effective strategy against a growing, diverse range of email compromises. MSPs will need to take up a more direct defense of their clients’ email.
Prevent email attacks at the source
Managing email security at the service level is the best way to protect your clients from spam, spear phishing, and other email security threats. Two solutions that Sherweb partners can access on this front include Proofpoint and Office Protect.
Proofpoint
Proofpoint is a powerful email security suite. It helps you protect your clients from spam, malware, phishing attacks, as well as outbound data leaks. Proofpoint also generates detailed reports that give you better insight on the threats your clients face, identify emerging threats trends before a compromise occurs and respond proactively. It additionally helps you and/or your clients meet any required regulatory data security standards necessary for your business.
Office Protect
Office Protect is a security add-on tool for Microsoft 365. It automates and streamlines how you manage Exchange security settings, monitoring features and reporting. The UI was designed to be a simple and intuitive front-end for accessing the complex security ecosystem in Microsoft 365. Office Protect also gives you easy access to even those hard to find, specialized settings a client needs enabled only once every few months.
Office Protect helps you implement powerful security measures on your client’s email accounts, including multi-factor authentication (MFA). It can flag suspicious sender domains and send threat alerts to administrators that allow you to take action on suspicious activity before any damage is done. Reports can be viewed in the dashboard as an easy-to-read summary or exported to various formats, including CSV or PDF.
How to sell email security services to clients
Using Proofpoint and Office Protect to secure your clients’ email can help your bottom line as a service provider, but only if your clients understand the value of better email security and say “yes” to new services. Many clients don’t see the need. So how can you best go about explaining the benefits of better email security to them?
Start by better understanding your client
You can’t market the same way to every single prospect and expect to be successful. You need to understand who you’re selling to. That means understanding the nature of your client’s or prospect’s business and the individual concerns of relevant decision-makers.
Are they interested mostly in cost savings? Are they worried about a growing regulatory burden? Has their business been burned by email compromises in the past? Understanding these details will allow you to tune your email security pitch to their pain points.
Identify how to integrate
Many clients will feel overwhelmed if you suggest adding a completely new service onto their contract to secure something they already have. It can be much more palatable to present email security as simply an integration or enhancement.
Are they already using Microsoft 365 as their cloud productivity platform? Present Office Protect as an add-on integration that can improve their email security. They’ll get better insight into how staff are sharing corporate data, what information might be leaving their network, and what threats are making their way to user inboxes.
Presales education is important
Many clients resist extra email security because they don’t understand the range of threats their businesses face. While Proofpoint and Office Protect are excellent at managing spam, if your clients only think email security is about preventing a few unwanted messages from appearing in their inbox, they’re never going to understand why it’s worth paying for the best. Educate them on the threat landscape SMBs face today, including everything from spear phishing attacks, to data leaks, to ransomware attacks.
Focus on outcomes
Most SMB owners (MSP clients) are not particularly IT-savvy. Cloud-based security tools may be hard for many of them to understand. Instead of trying to explain every bell and whistle to them, try to explain the business outcomes they’ll see implementing better email security controls.
Business data will be safer. They’ll spend less time remediating compromises. They’ll get fewer angry letters from compliance auditors. Those are things any business owner will appreciate.
Powerful solutions to complex problems
Email security may be a complex problem, but Sherweb has some powerful solutions for email security readily available to protect your clients. Become a Sherweb partner to leverage our expertise, strategic planning, and technical support to reach your full MSP potential.
