Many managed service providers (MSPs) struggle with getting their marketing strategy in place. This is usually because MSP owners are technologists and who tend to gravitate towards the technical capabilities and features of the services they provide, with limited experience in selling the value of the services.
However, for MSPs to scale and generate recurring revenue, reaching the right prospects, turning them into customers and retaining them for longer periods is essential.
Let’s take a look at three effective marketing channels MSPs can leverage to get qualified leads and grow their business.
1. Mastering Email Marketing
Email marketing presents a feasible channel for MSPs to engage their prospects or upsell to their existing clients without spending much. You should create and leverage email campaigns and sequences that pair with or reinforce all other active outbound marketing efforts.
Create different email campaigns for different goals. If you’d like your prospect to download a piece of content, make sure the subject line and the content in the email drives home the point. If you want your prospect to request for a demo, make sure the intent of the email is clear. Personalize the emails. Your email should look like its written by (and to) an individual.
Few things to consider when setting up emails:
- Segregate your contacts by industry, size of company or by other factors to make sure the right contacts get the right emails.
- Test your email sends to determine the time at which the open rate is high and set your future emails to the same time for maximum opens.
- A/B test your email campaigns. A/B testing is a way of working out which of your two campaign options is the most effective in terms of encouraging opens or clicks.
2. Making the Best Use of Organic Social Media Marketing
Take advantage of the presence of your prospects on social media. If your prospects are mostly on Twitter, become an authority in the MSP space. Use hashtags efficiently, watch for trending topics and engage in Twitter chatter to establish the brand. Follow influencers, bloggers, media and other relevant Twitter users that could impact your business.
If you have prospects who are business owners or IT technologists, managers and technicians, try and find them on LinkedIn and follow them. Make connections, share their posts and engage in conversations with them to build rapport. Keep your LinkedIn feed updated with regular posts about how your products can help your customers.
Facebook is one of the most used social media platforms in the United States. About 70 percent of adults use Facebook in 2020. Facebook posts can be used to spread awareness about your MSP. You can create Facebook groups and communities and invite your prospects and customers to join. While Facebook might not seem like an ideal platform to form business connections, why ignore it when can give your business the exposure it needs.
3. Elevating MSP Marketing Efforts With Digital Advertising
Digital advertising can be intimidating for MSP professionals. If you’ve never implemented digital advertising campaigns before and don’t know where to start, the jargon it employs could sound like gibberish. However, the trick to getting used to digital ads is to be hyper-focused and to take small, manageable bites out of a much larger pie.
But first, make sure that the messaging on your company website is clear, aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate and has definite call–to–actions (CTAs) for every piece of content.
- Learn How to Set Up Google AdWords – Google ads, also known as pay-per-click (PPC), drive leads to your website and are highly targeted towards search terms (keywords). Use keywords in ads that would signify the type of service you are providing and leverage the best content you have to offer on your website for the highest conversion rates.
You can also create paid ads on social media channels for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Twitter Advertising – Twitter ads have the potential to reach your clients and a whole network of prospects, with many technologists sharing, commenting and discussing technology news. The analytics program Twitter offers is great for any business. It has a campaign dashboard that allows you to track your impressions, results, and cost-per-results, conversion tracking, and provides you with easy ways to promote your tweets. Achieve your business goals through Twitter here.
- Facebook Advertising – Facebook ads, contests and promoted posts can help you generate leads for your business. You can learn more about Facebook advertising here.
- LinkedIn Advertising – Selling on LinkedIn can be the most beneficial for MSPs as compared to other platforms since it is easy to target the decision makers using their industry, job titles and company names. Learn how to get started with LinkedIn ads here.
For these MSP marketing tactics to work, it is necessary to identify your niche in the space. If your company specializes in cybersecurity or backup services, focus on messaging that uses these keywords and sells these services. You can later upsell your clients with other services.
Putting effort into marketing an entire gamut of IT managed services can confuse your potential prospects and result in poor marketing return-on-investment (ROI).
Kaseya Powered Services
Kaseya Powered Services (KPS) is a program that is designed to equip and empower MSPs with valuable assets and tools in the channel in order to go-to-market successfully and profitably. The program includes proven marketing and lead generation strategies, professional sales enablement material, and training and coaching for effective execution.
For example, you can learn how to sell your remote management and monitoring (RMM) services by downloading the marketing toolkit here.
You can also get more marketing insights in detail that can help you set up your marketing plan by downloading our MSP Sales and Marketing eBook.
