As with all businesses, managed service providers (MSP) contend with like-minded competitors who offer similar services and products. Since MSP businesses sell expertise in IT and technology to customers across a slew of industries, they must develop a strong digital marketing strategy to reaffirm their brand and cement their status within their area of work.
MSP marketing may be an afterthought for MSP business owners. After all, your top concerns are supporting your existing customers and delivering value to them, all the while working to take your business to the next level. Getting your MSP to rank higher in search engines can allow your business to stay competitive in the market.
A dynamic MSP marketing strategy can help your business remain at the forefront of your niche. This is attainable in four ways.
Define who your MSP is
When advertising your business, whether you are marketing IT services, cloud maintenance, unified communications, or anything else, it is important that you have a clear understanding of who you are as an organisation and who would best benefit from your expertise.
Consider the following questions:
- What does your MSP offer?
- What differentiates your business from other MSPs?
- Can you isolate your business’s values and how they inform your brand?
- Who would be the target audience for your services?
By tackling the questions above, you may gain a solid idea of what separates your MSP from a plethora of others. Those characteristics may be used as a foundation to build an online marketing campaign that effectively targets your chosen audience and the space in which they conduct business. In this way, your MSP may benefit from an infallible marketing strategy that appeals to potential customers in need of your experience.
Create an effective website
Websites can often be a pain point for business owners who do not have the skills or time to oversee them. While this is understandable, it also cannot be ignored or used as an excuse for neglect. 53.3% of all website traffic originates from organic searches. This means that more than half of the visitors a website receives comes from queries inserted into search engines.
For a website to garner lead generation, it needs to do the following:
- Be optimised for search engine optimisation (SEO)
- Host landing pages with enticing calls to action that encourage customers to interact with your services or make enquires
- Have clear links to digital channels that reflect your business, highlight your work, and demonstrate your company’s personality
- Be user-friendly
Similar to the IT industry and the technologies that inhabit it, websites have evolved to become sophisticated components of a business’s online presence. In addition to the guidelines outlined above, an effective website should also incorporate analytics programs into its makeup.
These software collect data that can be used to retrace the customer’s journey through a website and its other branches (e.g. social media). This information is invaluable as it gives companies (including MSPs) the ability to pinpoint any weaknesses or fallacies in their business and marketing strategies, so they can change them to create a more fulfilling customer experience when appropriate.
An overview of search engine optimisation (SEO)
SEO is a marketing practice that assists businesses in improving the visibility of their website on a search result page (SERP). SEO can be thought of as a popularity contest for websites as rankings are determined by the site’s relevancy to the inputted query and its overall reputation in comparison to other sites.
Specifically, SEO covers the following areas:
- Informational content produced from keyword research
- Meta descriptions and tags
- Customer testimonials and honest reviews
- Organic and relevant backlinks
- Appropriate images and multimedia
- Analytics
SEO is often used in tandem with content marketing practices. That is, the content that websites upload typically follow SEO protocols and contain keywords that the business is attempting to rank for.
These keywords need to be chosen with care and consideration. People seeking answers to their questions will input them into search engines. Typically, the more generic the word, the more difficult it will be for your website to rank for. On the other hand, the more specific the word, the easier it may be for your site to appear on the first page of search results – the ultimate goal for any website and its SEO strategy.
When wanting to market your MSP effectively, your strategy must incorporate SEO practices. While regularly producing phenomenal content crafted to suit people’s needs and interests (for example, blog posts) may seem like a burden, it is the opposite. According to studies, as of 2021, content marketing is used by 82% of marketers and is often credited with being an essential aspect of a business’s online marketing strategy.
An MSP that implements an SEO strategy that is also regularly updated for the market, may reap the benefits that result from greater exposure in search engines and more long-term business.
Build relationships with current and prospective clients
Customers determine an MSPs lifespan and digital marketing can be an effective way to connect MSPs with new clients. However, cultivating and maintaining those relationships can also lead your MSP to be marketed beyond your immediate circles. Developing relationships with your existing clientele (while actively working to forge new ties) may serve to benefit you in the long run.
Good service
After the sales process is complete and you’ve secured a new client, you and your team must work to deliver on your promises. Customers and their businesses want their problems to be handled by professionals who are trustworthy, efficient, and empathetic.
Good service refers to:
- Top-tier customer service
- The delivery of results and the overall customer experience
In regards to a business’s conduct and abilities, a client’s loyalty and trust speak volumes. Customer reviews provide readers with a glimpse of your business and can often be the force that determines a customer’s decision to enquire about your services. Potential clients are more likely to listen to positive stories your customers have told of you, rather than what your sales team have said.
By completing tasks, delivering on the promised outcomes, and exceeding people’s expectations, your business can leave a lasting, glowing impression on your clients. In turn, this could translate into referrals and a consistent clientele.
Customer relationship management
Customer relationship management (CRM) software are programs that store data relating to a business’s customers gathered throughout its life cycle. There are numerous CRM programs available that cater to larger corporations and small businesses.
While it can be as simple as keeping a physical logbook, growing businesses may benefit from storing potential and current client’s information in a database. This data can be used by companies to keep track of and improve the interactions they have with their customer base and any prospective clients who need more convincing before coming onboard.
Stay in touch
Collecting email addresses and saving phone numbers is a fraction of what MSPs can do to maintain relationships with customers or foster new ones. Your business is a gift to your clients and your commitment to their wellbeing shows your diligence and ability to satisfy queries, regardless of their complexity.
You should actively work to interact with your customers across a variety of platforms, not just in person.
Staying connected with your clients and approaching new ones could involve:
- Creating an email marketing campaign designed to pique a person’s interest, presently or in time.
- Regularly posting conversation-inducing content onto social media that may be of interest to your clients.
- Responding to messages on social media.
- Offering appealing incentives such as special deals and privileges.
The relationship a business has with its customers can often serve as the safety net that keeps them operating, no matter the circumstances it may be confronted with. By working to maintain these relationships, along with establishing newer partnerships, your MSP can develop a loyal base that contributes to consistent profit and business growth.
Create a comprehensive digital marketing plan
Digital marketing for IT companies should adhere to a thoroughly researched and well-thought-out plan. It should be able to show a clear path to the business’s goals and the milestones that need to be met to achieve the overall desired outcomes.
At its most basic level, a digital marketing plan can be developed across three stages, with a fourth stage relating to its execution, ongoing monitoring, and analysis of gathered materials.
The preliminary phases are as follows:
- The first stage consists of planners identifying the company’s current situation – weaknesses, strengths, place in the market etc – alongside the nature of its customers and the relationship it has with them.
- The second stage involves defining the exact goals that the business wants to achieve from its digital marketing. These cannot be generalisations or whimsical desires. They must be realistic and measurable for the company at the time of the plan’s development.
- The third stage is the drafting and creation of the actual marketing strategy. Using the information obtained during the previous stages, businesses can create campaigns that appeal to their customer base or connect them with potential clients in innovative ways. The goal should be to reach the people that will (or already) see value in your business.
During the fourth stage, enlisting the help of analytics programs may help with determining the efficacy of the plan and whether or not it was successful. The numbers may give you concrete insights into your company and can also be used to develop other strategies to help market your MSP.
In a space filled with seasoned experts and companies with years of experience under their belts, marketing your MSP is essential to its longevity and its impact on the lives of present customers and tomorrow’s clients. Speak to the marketing professionals at LeftLeads today to see how you can reinvigorate your plans to effectively market your MSP.
