How to Market Expertise and Innovation

Your new line of managed service offerings is rock solid. Your sales team can sell salt to the sea. But that is still not enough to increase the revenue, profit and market reach your company expects and your team deserves. If this scenario describes your situation, it’s time to revisit your marketing strategies.

To stay relevant, we must all refresh our approach to engaging with customers, prospects and partners on an on-going basis because evolving technologies – and the changes they bring to end-user discovery, research and buying habits – tend to outpace even the best marketing plans.

Here are a few basic strategies and practices that MSPs of any size can apply to develop or enhance their marketing discipline.  Remember, marketing relies on committing dedicated resources (even if it’s one person) to develop messages, create and deploy content and measure its success.

1. Value and ROI Come First

Everyone involved in the purchasing decision will feel more confident about making a purchase if the vendor shows documented value and ROI for the product or service. So, showcase an ROI as often as possible. That’s especially true for new and innovative offerings that may be new to your prospects.

2. Refresh Your Website to Reflect your Current Offerings and Capabilities

Your company’s website is its introduction to the world and the central communications hub for each client and partner. Make sure your content is fresh and relevant at all times so things don’t get stale.  It also gives your customers an incentive to comeback to the site if you are providing them something they highly value.  Also, ensure your content is search engine optimized so customers who are searching for topics you have content around will find YOUR content.  There are many sites that can give you a good overview of how to optimize your content, such as Moz.

3. Content is King 

Thought leadership articles, blogs, white papers, case studies, customer appreciation and product demo days, etc.  …Any type of content that showcases your company’s perspective is worth promoting and sharing on your site and social platforms. This is among the cheapest, most effective marketing you can engage in. If strapped for resources, hire a professional to write, photograph, videotape, post and share content as frequently as needed. Meaningful stories and high-res, quality photos and videos go a long way.   Remember, you’re the subject matter expert…show it.

4. Be Very Social 

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+ are all highly effective forms of marketing for MSPs who apply the latest best practices for posting content on each.

5. Measure Engagement, Refine Strategy

Google analytics and other free tools make it easy to measure important website marketing and advertising metrics, such as overall traffic, unique users and page views, time spent on the site or engaged with particular pieces of content, bounce rates, cost per lead, conversions, and projected ROI, to name a few. Regularly compare those metrics with your company’s established goals. If the numbers fall short, which they inevitably will in certain areas, tweak the content or adjust your online strategy.  This should be an ongoing process that’s assigned to a dedicated employee.

Let us know which marketing strategies work best for your company. Here are a few articles that will help you dig deeper into specific marketing areas:

Redefining MSP Marketing

Top 3 Marketing Mistakes MSPs and Solution Providers Make

To learn even more about best practices in managed services, download our free guide, MSP Matters: A Roadmap to Enduring Business Success. 

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