Proven MSP marketing tips from industry experts

Getting and retaining clients remains to be one of the toughest challenges MSPs go through, yet most service providers don’t have a sales or marketing game plan as it gets left behind when they are fighting other fires in their business.   In MSP marketing, you don’t really need to go big quickly – this is where a lot of MSPs fail. Diving too deep and investing on half-baked strategies without starting from the beginning. In our previous piece, we’ve listed out the things you can do, not to be the best straight away, but how not to suck at marketing at least. 

If you’d like to take your marketing game up a notch, here’s more tried and tested advice from your peers:

1.  Network! It isn’t dead yet.

Your branding isn’t enough – you have to get it out there! What’s the point of business cards and your cool new website if no one knows about them? Get out there, join networking events and meet new people to increase your brand’s exposure and create relationships. You can try networking  at events organised by your local business chambers or industry events targeting your verticals. For example, you can join hospitality conferences if your niche market is hotels or clubs, or medical conferences if your niche is hospitals and clinics. 

Set up yourself in circles you want to work in.

James Davis, Director of Academy, Pax 8

2.  Focus on relationships

This isn’t the first time we’re saying this, but we’re still gonna say it- most businesses aren’t after your tech stack. Chances are they have no idea about the technicalities at all. Trust is built from great relationships. Think about who you’re selling to. Understand your target market, or your customer and frame your strategies according to that understanding. It’s not about you and tech – it’s all about alleviating your customers’ pain points with the best possible solution.

3.   Know which medium and channel works for you and your customers

Some might say old school marketing doesn’t work anymore but some MSPs still get great results doing it. It varies according to your target market. There’s a lot of mediums and channels out there – email marketing, social media, website, online ads to name some, but nothing would be effective if you don’t know which resonates to your target market the most. And if you don’t know, ask your current ideal customers where they spend their time and get their information from so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

4. Nail your conversion

If you’re operating in a low lead environment, what do you think is important? Conversion! You have to nail it.

Jamie Warner, CEO, Invarosoft

It doesn’t end with farming your leads. You need to be proactive in nurturing them. Create a playbook on how to handle a lead – from qualifying each one, to tracking and measuring everything you do. When you start with a data-driven approach, it’s easy for you to see which areas you need to improve. 

Here are some great resources that can help you understand lead nurturing:

• Understanding lead nurturing
• Creating a lead nurturing workflow
• Effective lead nurturing tactics
• Best practices for lead nurturing

5. Be clear with your purpose and your mindset

Marketing takes a huge amount of work. What most MSPs suffer from is that they usually don’t have a strong purpose in driving their marketing campaigns. Often they are unsure if they really want to grow their business. 

Some MSPs don’t want the additional work and don’t genuinely want to grow their business so they intentionally put roadblocks to executing their marketing campaigns. 

Whether you’d like to grow or sustain your business with your current client base is perfectly fine – just make sure to decide from the beginning so you don’t waste resources on things you’re not passionate about.

6. Get help from marketing experts

While marketing isn’t their cup of tea for most MSPs, there are great agencies who can guide you to the correct process. But don’t completely rely on them. It’s still your responsibility to know your target and decide on your goals.

A good marketing agency will want to know who your target clients are and encourage you to collaborate in driving marketing strategies. You need to work with them and not just give them the money and leave them alone.

Ready to learn more? Know how to develop marketing strategies that will help you effectively reach, engage and convert leads with our free white paper, Marketing 101 for MSPs.

You can also watch these 30-minute webinars on demand to get more insights and tips from MSP marketing experts, Pounce Marketing  on how to improve on different areas in marketing your MSP:

• How to build insightful personas
• Email marketing best practices
• How to amplify your presence on LinkedIn
• Increase Exposure on Google Marketing

If you don’t have the time, budget or team to create and implement your marketing strategies, our Marketing Concierge is more than happy to help! 

Our Marketing concierge is available to Hosted Network partners. It’s a cost-effective way to access marketing expertise and resources including:

• Marketing kits 
• Sales power plays
• Brochures
• Proposal templates
• Free white labelling service to brand documents as your  MSP’s logo and colours
• Marketing Development Funds

Contact our Partner Success Team at sales@hostednetwork.com.au to learn more.