ConnectWise recently surveyed 1000 MSPs about their marketing strategies, and the insights might surprise you.
It’s also possible that you’ll have an “oh, thank goodness I’m not alone” moment.
MSPs are not unique from other industries in that their core marketing struggles are often mirrored. Do any of these sound familiar?
- Limited resources
- Only 15% of MSPs have more than 1 resource dedicated to marketing
- Lack of experience internally to tackle complex marketing objectives
- 58% have little to no marketing experience in-house
- Low budgets
- 42% of MSPs have less than $10k in marketing spend budgeted each year
- Reliance on the same-old, same-old marketing tactics
- Referrals drive 50% of revenue for MSPs that use them
- Most MSPs rely only SEO or social media as their only marketing tactics
- Inexperience and lack of knowledge in marketing strategies
- 20% of MSPs don’t track success metrics for their marketing
Are these numbers surprising?
We didn’t think they were. We’ve had this conversation many times before with c-suite executives at MSPs across the country.
With most MSPs only allotting about $10k or less per year toward their marketing, they’re typically putting that toward standard and simple marketing systems like SEO, social media, event attendance, and referral outreach.
The issue with relying on the same-old tactics is that the majority of your competitors are applying the same strategies and likely seeing the same results. You may be trading places competitively because neither is stretching those marketing muscles to get beyond the starting line.
If you’re still stuck at start, here’s some things to consider when trying to market your MSP on a tight budget.
Marketing Your MSP on a Budget
If you are an MSP looking to optimize your current strategies, here’s some tactics that may help stretch your marketing budget:
- SEO
- Don’t sleep on your Google Business Profile. It is low-cost and simple to revisit and improve. Add fresh images, check the description, add social links, and keep it current.
- Social Media
- Try to aim for a balance of posting types. Focus on about
- 25% promotional of services
- 25% culture-based
- 25% industry/leadership based
- 25% engagement focused (i.e. trends, questions, quizzes)
- Don’t forget to get your BizDev and c-suite level employees on LinkedIn to share and promote your company profiles as this is a factor in their algorithm.
- Event Attendance
- Get a calendar in place for your sales team and set MQL objectives for them before attendance.
- Measure the # of contacts made, connections created via LinkedIn, and follow up plan scheduled to make the most of their participation.
- Referrals
- Never miss an opportunity to follow up with a happy customer after a good CSAT score. Build this process into your Project Management tool for best results.
Moving Past the Starting Gun – MSP Marketing Momentum
Most MSPs operating on a lower budget rely on internal capabilities to make the most of their marketing.
Marketing pain is felt as MSPs strive to grow without:
- Better sales enablement
- More supporting marketing materials
- Improved vendor support & understanding
- Better education on the marketing process, buyers, and campaigns
- Alignment with service techs and marketing
Ideally, for IT companies looking to extend their marketing services and fulfill these marketing gaps, they can find a partnership that provides custom pricing to suit the higher priority needs.
Start with an assessment of your marketing gaps and a competitive overview to determine what your baseline campaigns would need to be to compete. As an example, if none of your competitors are running complex social media campaigns, then you can likely get away with a lower-tier delivery and still find success.
We recommend that you seek out a marketing agency with custom pricing that can work with your business development team to align sales and marketing options. Ideally, you can source a vendor that offers a one-stop marketing solution and some sort of quarterly strategic planning sessions to keep your team in the loop.
Most MSPs are familiar with a quarterly tech audit or check-in process. Marketing agencies should also offer a similar steering meeting to align and report on successes or changes.
Better Sales Enablement – Where to Start
Better sales enablement starts with open dialogue between your sales and marketing teams. Even if your “marketing team” currently comprises a front desk staff member and web developer, communicating BizDev’s needs is vital to improving sales structure.
Example: Improving Sales Flow to Onboarding with Marketing
- Onboarding is not clear between sales hand off and projects.
- Create a shared landing page that identifies the language used during sales so that projects know what was sold.
- The landing page creates consistency in the selling process between sales reps.
This is one instance of how a simple web page can streamline the sales process to hand off and create a better client experience. You want to ensure that your clients become Raving Fans, starting with clear onboarding.
More supporting marketing materials
Supporting marketing materials is a broad term and could include:
- “Leave Behinds” or product one-sheets that highlight the key features, benefits, and product details of your service offering – these can be pdfs or printable sheets
- Industry-targeted video content – which enables you to send follow up emails with your supporting video highlighting the specific pains that buyer would relate to
- Nurturing emails – a series of automated emails that help qualify a lead before it goes to your sales team
Here’s another example of how you should Think Outside the Box with how marketing can help your company.
Example: Reduce Phishing Service Tickets with Marketing
Ironically, one way to combat malicious email threats is by sending out educational emails.
A monthly newsletter not only builds better relationships with your existing clients, but it should also be a platform to further their education.
Identifying and sharing the latest cybersecurity threats and phishing scam types can provide value, increase customer awareness, and reduce phishing events.
Additionally, this type of marketing outreach can be a platform for Upselling your services. Especially if your Cybersecurity or Advanced Cybersecurity services are a separate cost than your Managed or Co-Managed services.
Improved vendor support & understanding
We stress the importance of good team alignment both internally and externally.
In years of working with owners to help transform their businesses, we not only focus on their marketing but also the alignment they have internally with C-Suite to Sales to Delivery to Marketing. One way to improve the understanding of support and how the departments can work together is high-quality meetings.
Meetings should include a repeatable format that establishes:
- SMART Goals
- Aligned Goals
- Accountability
- Platform for Feedback
- Risk Assessments
- Creative Thinking
The departments’ goals should not be ambiguous. They should be aligned to support one another.
If BizDev needs 12 MQLs from the Construction industry to make 3 closes, marketing needs to understand and agree to that objective.
All departments should be held accountable for their part in the campaigns. No finger-pointing. This is a team effort.
Risks should be addressed quickly and thoroughly. And creative thinking should be welcomed at every stage.
These types of meetings don’t have to be long but they create a very helpful habit of quality collaboration and success.
Better education on the marketing process, buyers, and campaigns
Marketing is complicated. There’s no real getting around it. The concept sounds simple, but the execution is complex. Marketing has a million metrics it can measure at all stages of the buyer’s journey. You can be running 3 different social media campaigns simultaneously, and they will all have different ideas of what success looks like.
A good marketing company should be able to explain things simply. To narrow the focus and get clarity. And also set realistic objectives.
One thing we’ve learned is that CEOs are dreamers. They have lofty goals, big ideas, and a vision that’s nearly out of this world. The realistic slog to get there is one that’s not nearly as fun. Don’t fall for lofty promises. Marketing takes time. It’s a marathon not a sprint.
There’s no secret sauce to this.
All marketing agencies are going to offer a somewhat similar product in much the same way that MSPs mostly have the same offering. The key difference here is between Tactics and Strategy.
Most agencies will utilize the same tactics. The difference between an effective company and an ineffective one is the Strategy they use to implement those Tactics.
Bonus: Recruitment as a Targeted Campaign
According to report from Kaseya, who interviewed nearly 1000 MSPs last year, 36% of MSPs put customer acquisition as their primary concern; 19% put dealing with advanced security threats; and 12% put hiring.
Most MSPs don’t consider “Hiring” as an essential part of their marketing strategy but they’re very much tied together.
In our experience, typically, the 2nd or 3rd most viewed page on a site is the About page. Careers or Culture pages are always in the top 5.
Your website is an essential piece of your recruitment strategy. Not only does a good website that represents your company culture help you sell your services, but it also offers a first glimpse into what it would be like to work for you.
Share your values. Celebrate your team. Highlight your Mission. Work with marketing to paint a picture of all the reasons why you’re a great place to work and watch the resumes fly in.
Lead Generation for MSPs
As MSP business owners tackle budgets and planning for year ahead, know that you’re not alone in your struggle to discover the right avenues for your marketing focus.
Many MSPs acknowledge that increased competition is a major area of concern.
Remember that the majority of MSPs are relying on the same tactics as you.
Without a solid competitive landscape assessment, you may not know what opportunities exist to get an edge on your marketing strategy.
In Kaseya’s survey, nearly half of all MSPs polled said they were looking to increase their marketing services as part of their growth strategy.
Some may follow through with that goal – and they might be beating you this year.
If you need help scoping out good marketing partnerships, whether it’s just to get an idea of the right questions to ask or need help optimizing the marketing you’re currently focusing on, book some time with Cassia to talk about options for your MSP.
