Marketing for MSPs: 3 Effective, Budget-Minded Tips

One of the biggest struggles that our clients face is finding new and innovative ways to market their MSP business. The industry has grown rapidly in recent years and that growth has brought a wealth of competition. However, there are some simple steps that any managed service provider can take to stand out from the crowd and make their marketing budget stretch further.

A few simple steps that any MSP can take to improve their marketing efforts include:

Outsource Until You Can Bring In House

 
A critical mistake that many growing MSPs make is being too quick to build an in-house marketing team. While an in-house team is a goal for new companies and a requirement for larger organizations, MSPs shouldn’t be in too big of a rush. Bringing on an in-house marketing team can carry significant risk. Often, it is a better idea to refine your marketing strategies while outsourcing before building your own team.

MSPs make their living by pitching the outsourcing of IT services to their clients. Why wouldn’t they take their own advice when it comes to marketing? Additionally, many companies make the mistake of bringing together an internal team one piece at a time. This often leads to a situation where a single person must manage the full scope of the company’s marketing efforts, which is often too big of a job for one person. Instead, consider hiring a person to manage your outsourced marketing. That person can work with agencies and freelancers to put together effective marketing strategies and test new ideas.

Cover the Basics, Then Expand

 
Excited MSP owners may be tempted to jump straight into the deep-end of the marketing pool. The problem with this is that they jump in before they learn the front stroke. While it might be enticing to ramp up your digital strategy on multiple fronts at the same time, ensuring you have your basics covered gives you a foundation to build on. That foundation makes all subsequent marketing more effective and facilitates better business decisions.

Start with the small things. Update your website with a modern design. Create some helpful and interesting content about your products and services. Give your prospects a place to learn more about your company. Make sure that you give those prospects several ways to contact you, including through phone, email, or consultation request forms. Once you have a solid foundation laid, you can then begin to invest your marketing budget in other areas that will drive visibility.

Marketing KPIs

 
No MSP should begin investing heavily in their marketing without first outlining what would make their efforts successful. How do you measure success in marketing? Start by outlining a few key performance indicators that will help you to track your effectiveness. The KPIs and metrics that we typically recommend to clients include:

• Total website visitors. How many people are landing on your website? Where are they coming from? What are your visitor trends telling you? Total website visitors is a good gauge of how well your marketing is performing generally and provides insight into your marketing operations as a whole.

• Total landing page visitors. How many people are actually seeing your lead capture forms? Knowing how many visitors are taking the next step provides insight into how qualified your traffic is and how effective your content is.

• Number of leads. How many are filling out your forms and asking for more information? Leads are the lifeblood of any managed service provider.

• Lead conversion rate. Out of those that fill out your lead form, how many become clients? Are you attracting the right people to your website? Leads that convert at a low rate may provide insight into issues within your sales pipeline.

• Number of prospect conversations. Out of everyone that fills out your lead capture form, how many of them end up getting on the phone with you? How many are falling through the cracks?

• Number of opportunities from new prospects. Of those that hop on the phone with you, how many make it as far as discussing a potential partnership with your MSP? This can provide insight into issues with phone sales if you find that not many opportunities are being generated.

These are just a few of the many KPIs that could be useful to MSPs or any company that does business online. They provide a starting point for tracking, evaluating, and improving your MSP marketing efforts.

Next steps with MSP marketing 

Consistent and careful marketing is vital for keeping your sales pipeline full. However, many growing companies try to ramp up too quickly by bringing on an in-house team. You have to learn to walk before you can run. Start small, ensuring that you have your basics covered and slowly expand your marketing efforts as you begin to see results.

If you would like to learn more about effectively marketing your MSP, check out our Marketing for MSPs Webinar.