In the ever-changing and ever-growing IT industry, managed service providers (MSPs) are often faced with various challenges at the same time. Whether it is evolving cybersecurity risks, a saturated market, or stagnant business, MSPs are familiar with facing many challenges on a day-to-day basis. However, marketing to clients and prospects doesn't have to be one of those challenges. With the proper framework, MSPs can leverage strategic marketing campaigns to target future clients and nurture existing ones.
Many MSPs may find the idea of marketing confusing, and launching a campaign to clients and prospects can feel like venturing into uncharted waters. In one survey, 53% of MSPs cited sales and marketing as a top challenge. The stigma of marketing hinders MSPs from diving into the opportunities that await them once they kickstart their efforts. When MSPs take the leap into marketing, the leads generated from strategic marketing campaigns can take their business growth to new heights.
Prepare
Preparing to launch a marketing campaign is an integral part of the campaign process. This first step sets you and your teams up for success by understanding everything you need to know about the campaign topic.
Sales enablement refers to the materials and tools necessary for educating your internal sales and marketing teams on the importance and relevance of a given topic. Good enablement content helps salespeople sell more efficiently and knowledgeably. Examples include:
- Sales guide
- Objection handling
- Enablement resources
Execute
The second step of creating an MSP marketing campaign is campaign execution. This is the “meat and potatoes” of the campaign, where the majority of the content is shared with your target audience. All marketing campaigns follow a similar structure but have the flexibility to look different. A typical marketing campaign includes various organic and paid channels and inbound and outbound marketing strategies. A well-rounded campaign will include various channels with the goal of reaching a larger audience through those efforts.
All email campaigns start with a quality lead list of clients or prospects to whom you’d like to send your emails. Once you have this list, you can deploy your email drips! An email drip, or drip marketing campaign, is a series of emails sent to your target market over a set period of time.
Effective email drips include a call to action (CTA) for clients and prospects to click for more information, often leading to a form or landing page. This is a great tool to track leads for those interested in a piece of content, more information, or scheduling a meeting.
It’s essential to revisit the reporting or analytics on your email performance. This will give you a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t with your email strategies.
Social media is one of the best ways to stay in front of clients and prospects. In fact, 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make buying decisions. Similar to the email drip campaign, a social media drip campaign shares a series of posts on social media channels.
There are various social media channels to use, including LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The channels you choose to participate in depend on the level of engagement you see from your target market. For MSPs, many find LinkedIn to be a great social media channel to target.
Again, reporting on the performance of social media campaigns is an important part of understanding how your clients and prospects interact with your brand. These metrics will help you determine how to adjust your messaging for future campaigns.
There are many other ways to interact and engage with your target market while executing your marketing campaigns. Blogs, paid ads, events, and webinars are all effective strategies to include in your marketing campaigns to drive lead generation.
Empower
The final stage of your MSP marketing campaign is following up on leads and empowering your target market. Once your campaign has ended, and you’ve gathered the analytics and leads, it’s important to nurture those leads with additional touchpoints.
Once you have your lead list, follow up with those leads to further the prospect down the sales funnel. There are several ways to do this. However, these are successful strategies to use wherever you are in your marketing maturity:
- Call scripts or talk tracks
- Sales presentations or demos
- Business proposals
Conclusion
For many MSPs, marketing is a challenge that seems too daunting to take on, and launching a marketing campaign is out of mind. However, the ConnectWise Partner Program is the solution to your MSP marketing challenges. The Partner Program was created to support our partners with their go-to-market strategy, marketing efforts, and sales initiatives to help them achieve their most ambitious vision of success.
As a member of the Partner Program, you’ll gain immediate access to educational resources, in-depth training videos, marketing assets, go-to-market campaigns, and community-based events to prepare, execute, and empower you and your clients as you reach your goals.
