MSP Marketing: Mighty Strategy Guide For A Managed Services Provider

How important is your MSP internet marketing? Let’s say you know of a store with all the cool stuff that you need and everything is reasonably priced. This store should draw a lot of customers, right? But what if for some reason this store is empty of people despite the value it provides. Think for a moment about what could be wrong. Maybe they have poor customer service. Maybe the location has something to do with it. Or maybe, people just don’t know how awesome this store is because the owners failed to implement a marketing strategy.

The same can be said about managed services as a business. People need to know first about your MSP business before they can become your clients. And this is where the power of online MSP marketing comes into play for your managed service provider business.

Let’s look at a few approaches for your MSP Marketing campaign.

Getting Started with MSP Marketing

Here are 3 steps you can take when starting off with your MSP marketing campaign.

Step 1: Create Quality Website Content

As we’ve talked about in a previous article about winning new clients, your MSP website can make or break your online presence. For positive results, your MSP website should offer something of value to your online visitors and prospective clients. Whether people are there to find tech or managed service-related answers, responding to your ads should result in something productive. People who visit your website will need a good reason to do so. Well-prepared content pages will certainly give them that reason.

One way of providing quality content is through blogs. A blog that is relevant to your managed services business makes your readers want to keep coming back. And the useful information you provide establishes your expertise. This way, you also become more visible to search engines. But there’s a wide range of topics to talk about even for MSPs.

If you need help in providing quality content and marketing tips for your managed services website, you should check out our TECHNIBBLE MARKETING MEMBERSHIP. You will get access to a wide range of MSP marketing material from blog content to e-books to educational videos, and so much more!

If you want something spontaneous, then adding videos to your website will help. Videos can be more engaging than written content because it involves two of our senses. You can use videos to demonstrate your products and services. Or provide in-depth information about computer technology and its benefits. You can even produce a short video newscast for IT updates. But based on tried and tested marketing strategies, you need to keep your MSP info videos short and simple.

Your MSP marketing, however, does not end with just having quality blog posts. The next step is to start thinking about content marketing to draw people to read your managed services blogs.

Step 2: Prepare to Market What Your Website Offers

People are usually apprehensive when they feel that you are directly selling to them. Even in real life, we don’t appreciate it when selling becomes intrusive. So it’s no surprise if online users are quick to dismiss adverts on the web. This is where your quality website content can do the indirect selling for you, without being too imposing. But aside from improving the google rank of your MSP website, you need a way to convert your visitors into paying clients. Stir their interest to life by writing effective sales copy.

An effective sales copy should have these characteristics:

• Clear. Your sales copy should be easy to read and understand. Break down long sentences, and avoid using too many commas.
• Concise. Be straight to the point – drop those unnecessary words. It’s better if you can catch your reader’s attention in the first sentence.
• Engaging. The focus is not on you, but on how your readers can benefit from your website content.
• Credible. Let’s face it, how many times have we raised an eyebrow when we read something like “You’re missing out 50% of your life if you don’t buy this product”. For your sales copy to be credible, it should be hype-free.
• Persuasive. Persuasion motivates people to take action. It’s not uncommon to see words in a sales copy such as “read on”, “click here to learn more about…”, or “read and find out why”.

The Q&A Technique

One way of writing good sales copy is with the question-and-answer technique. A question allows your reader to independently process your message. It’s one of the most engaging conversational tools, both online and offline.

Let’s say you’re promoting an article on how backup storage can help businesses survive a disaster. Then your copy would go like this:

“Can your business survive the next disaster? Here are four ways you can prepare.”

But like with everything else, be cautious when using questions to engage online users. Don’t ask a LOT of questions. It will throw your readers off focus. It’s also important to watch your tone – don’t sound condescending or like a know-it-all. And don’t ask inappropriate or personal questions that will make your readers feel uncomfortable. They will be quick to lose interest this way.

Keep your tone conversant, but professional. With these points in mind, you are most likely to ignite interest in your readers and draw them to your well-built website.

Now the third step is to advertise your MSP content to the right audience.

Step 3: Reaching Your Target Market Through Advertising

Advertising is like throwing away money, as most people would describe it. But we’ll just have to face the fact that it’s part of the game. It’s not surprising for top fortune companies to spend billions of dollars annually in advertising. You see their ads everywhere – on television, billboards, print media, social media, and so on. The more we see these ads, the more we feel comfortable buying the products. Just like the store with all the cool stuff that offers great value for money, you too need to make people aware of your managed services business.

Here are a few insights into using Google and Facebook to advertise your MSP business.

Google Adwords

This kind of advertising on Google allows you to specifically target people who are considering hiring you at the moment they are seeing your online ad. In short, you get found by people who are intentionally looking for you.

For example, if people search “managed IT services California”, it’s safe to assume they are looking for a managed service provider located in California.

Google AdWords has also changed the way advertising works by only making you pay based on results. When users become interested in your ad and click it, that’s the only time that you shell out money. That’s known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. This is so much different from the hit-or-miss traditional advertising, which costs you a fixed price whether or not people even take the time to look at your ad.

Another advantage of Google Adwords is its advanced tracking ability. You would be able to see how many people saw your ad, how many clicked on it, and how many took action once they’re on your website. This insight is important for you to identify problems if you are not getting the results you want. It could be that you need to change the keywords you are targeting, your sales copy, or you may just need to improve the landing page of your website.

Facebook Ads

There are almost 3 billion active users on Facebook each month, and almost everyone is using this social platform. That means you have the opportunity to connect with current customers and reach people interested in your managed services. Even with its large audience, Facebook lets you target specific people that are potentially a good match for your business.

For example, your MSP ads can target people with “CEO”, “Business Owner”, and “IT Support” in their profile. It can also target users in a specific geographical area.

With a minimum daily budget of $1 to $5, Facebook allows you reasonable spending of your money. What’s good about it is you can still adjust, pause, or stop your ads as finances change for your business. It also has a feature that lets you set a spending limit on your ads, to control your costs and avoid overspending.

Facebook Ads Manager

The success of each ad you create on Facebook can be measured using its Ads Manager. Using this tool, you can understand the effectiveness of your ad.

For example, it shows you the characteristics of people who clicked on your ads. This is a big advantage for your advertising strategy because you can refine your target even more. And this can also help you calculate the return on investment (ROI) you’re getting, and show you the value your ads are driving for your MSP business.

To wrap things up, there are three essential points in your MSP online advertising. First, you need to set up your website to provide useful content so you can build a relationship with your prospects. Your website content can also do the indirect selling for you, as it draws people to your website – and your services as well. Next, you need a good sales copy to move people into action when they see your ad. And third, creating ads in Google or Facebook will help you reach and connect with your potential clients. This will give you the chance to convert them into sales and improve revenue for your business.

Next up, let’s look at how you can use client testimonials to support your MSP marketing efforts.

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How To Make Use of Effective Testimonials for Your MSP Marketing

How important are testimonials in your MSP marketing campaign? Well, think about the purchases you’ve made recently. A word-of-mouth recommendation probably helped you form an opinion. It’s usually what other people say about a product, be it positive or negative, that makes the strongest impact on our decisions. When other people inform us that they already had a good experience with something, we tend to take their statement as unbiased and genuine. So whether it’s from someone we trust or a post we see on social media telling us that the burger at nearby joint tastes just so heavenly – there’s a high chance that we’ll drop by.

This is why using testimonials in your MSP marketing campaign can be a powerful tool to give you leverage. The human element to it is more appealing than reading a sales copy.

Here’s how you go about it.

Choose A Good Candidate

Getting a testimonial isn’t just a point-and-go decision. Clients who somehow are currently unhappy with your services aren’t the best sources for a positive recommendation. Top spenders may not necessarily agree on using their name and their brand to promote your services. Even clients who signed a contract with you recently may have misgivings on what to say. So unless you can read the minds of your clients, there should be a way for you to gauge who will happily cooperate with you.

You can start reaching out and ask for feedback by having your quarterly or bi-annual surveys. This can help you identify those you might want to ask for a testimonial. Truth is, it serves another purpose – it can help improve your service. This helps you flag less-satisfied clients and have an opportunity to make up where you might fall short.

So the effort you put into making and sending out a survey form is worth it – you’re hitting two birds with one stone. Once you find the right clients who are willing to participate, you’ll want to help guide their testimonials in the right direction.

When your client agrees to share a testimonial, schedule a short conversation right away. Then make the best out of your client’s time by preparing in advance a list of questions you’d like to ask. This shows your clients you value their time. You’ll also be able to guide the conversation through your questions. It’s good to take detailed notes, or better yet – ask permission to record the conversation to get accurate quotes which you can use later.

Feature Measurable Results

Having just a testimonial may not be enough. If your client’s message fails to make potential clients see how you can help them, then it becomes ineffective. While testimonials about your efficiency and trustworthiness as MSP are important, they may not have the necessary impact to move prospects into action.

If possible, get a testimonial that features results in terms of numbers. Quantifiable results have more impact. Try to uncover something impressive they’ve achieved only through your help. For example, your managed services helped increase their network speed or your IT solution increased overall productivity. Such measurable results can help demonstrate the overall value you provide. When done, ask your client to approve any quotes before you use them.

You can also get other testimonials from each type of client you service. You can segment based on their industry vertical, or based on their IT issues that you were able to resolve. Doing this will give more depth to your testimonials, as opposed to clients just saying that your service is “excellent,” or “great”.

Use the Testimonials in Your MSP Marketing

Your great reviews should be put where they can be seen and your homepage is a good place to put the best ones. But these quotes should also link to a dedicated testimonial page, so prospects can view more feedback. If your site has separate pages for particular products or services, some choice and positive testimonials could be that little push prospects need to turn into clients.

Additionally, here’s where you can put those testimonials into good marketing use.

Blog Content

Anyone who lands on your blog is a potential customer. Testimonials within your blog content can serve two purposes – attract the interest of those who visited by chance and reaffirm your credentials to those who visited by choice.

Case Studies

A case study is already an awesome sales tool in its own right. But you can enhance it further and add more impact if you include a testimonial from the customer in question.

Call to Action

Include short testimonials next to your calls to action to help drive conversions. It’s one of the most important places on your site for using testimonials – and could be the trigger to help prospects overcome any final objections.

Social Media

Testimonials in your social media posts can help boost clicks and conversions since it’s the digital counterpart of traditional word-of-mouth marketing.

Another great thing you can do with your testimonials is to display them in your office. This can help remind you and your employees to always aim for your client’s satisfaction. And as you invite prospects to visit your office, they’ll also see the positive feedback.

No doubt, testimonials are powerful tools in marketing. Use your survey tools to get an idea of which client is likely willing to give you a good testimonial. If possible, feature a measurable result of your service. And use these testimonials freely in your MSP marketing – your blogs, case study, call to action, and social media, just to name a few. Word-of-mouth recommendation worked great in the past, and it still works now. So never underestimate the power of testimonials in your MSP marketing.

Speaking of the power of testimonials – how about the power of video content! Earlier, we talked about using videos in your website content. And now we’re going to go one up and offer you exclusive access to marketing videos which you can use in your MSP website and social media accounts.

MSP Marketing with High-Converting Videos

There is no doubt that video is a major engagement tool on social media. Managed Service Providers need to be taking advantage of this, but it takes a ton of time and effort to create quality marketing videos.

Because of this, we included professionally-made, MSP-specific educational videos for our Technibble Marketing Members.

The videos are super easy to use. Simply copy and paste our embed code into your social media business accounts or even on your MSP website. If you would like to customize any of the videos and host them yourself, you can do that too.

It’s important to match the accent used in your country, and that’s why we made the videos available in 4 different accents. American, British, Canadian, and Australian.

Here’s an example of one of the video campaigns we released, Business Continuity. It demonstrates the different accents, but members get to choose the version specific to their country.

If you would like to use this video or similar MSP-related videos to grow your prospect lists and for marketing your services, then JOIN THE TECHNIBBLE MARKETING MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM TODAY!

Each and every month you get different campaigns to help with marketing your MSP business.

Before I wrap things up, I have 3 forms of content to share with you.

1. Written
2. Video
3. Voice

Now let’s see how I made use of written, video, and voice content to talk about why it’s important for MSPs to do content marketing.

Why MSPs Should Do Content Marketing?

In this video, I share with you how you can get more managed service clients with content marketing. And how you can do it without writing a single word.

PODCAST: MSPs and Content Marketing

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:08 — 7.2MB)

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VIDEO: MSPs & Content Marketing

Written: Transcription of Why MSPs Should Do Content Marketing

Bryce Whitty here from Technibble.com, and I would like to share with you why content marketing is a fantastic way to get managed service clients.

So to begin, the problem with obtaining managed service clients is that most people know who you are, they don’t know what you can do, they also don’t really know what you can BE done. They don’t know what internet baddies are out there to get them, and they don’t really know how they can work better in their OWN business.

With content marketing, you allow prospects to discover you and you can educate them to become better buyers, while at the same time building authority and trust in you.

What is Content Marketing?

To define what content marketing actually is, it’s a way of marketing by creating and distributing valuable content to attract the attention of your audience. So in your case, we want to attract clients who need your managed services. It’s something I have been doing in one form or another for the last 20 years, but I really pushed with it when I started Technibble about 12 years ago. I personally love content because it’s a way to do one marketing task, but have many other benefits. Sort of a 1 plus 1 equals 3 kind-a-thing.

While content marketing IS a form of marketing, it works so much better because it has the ability to PUNCH THROUGH people’s filters. We’re sort in a world where there are advertisements everywhere, and we’ve become desensitized to it. Big banners that say “BUY NOW!” are no longer noticed. People have developed a powerful resistance to the “hard sell”.

Your content is also the perfect employee for your business.

However, People DO like to consume good free content. People spend hours on sites and social media just reading. Loving to consume information. With content marketing, you provide valuable information first and post it where your audience is. This might be Facebook, LinkedIn, or even your own mailing list made up of your existing clients. Again, it builds relationships and credibility so when they are ready to buy, you are the first person they think of.

Content: The Perfect Employee

Your content is also the perfect employee for your business. It never takes a break, and it sells for you 24×7, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You are not chasing down sales, the leads are coming to you. Content marketing costs less than most other forms of marketing, and it’s not affected by AdBlockers which most people do or at least should have installed. People also know where the ads are on sites like Facebook, so they just avoid looking at the sidebar. Content marketing gets your information to the FEED where the content is.

It’s just super powerful. Of course, the problem is that content marketing takes TIME to write, and that’s why many businesses don’t do it, even when they know they should. This is the problem I solve with Technibble. Our members get access to content that informs and educates your prospects and existing customers. We take technical topics that your audience should know about and explain them in laymen’s terms in an interesting way. This is a process that we’ve refined over more than a decade of content marketing.

Our members can send out content in email format, social media, and even by video. Which they can brand as if they created it. If you would like to join us and power up your MSP marketing then come join the Technibble family.