The magical formula for MSP marketing success.
Done correctly any MSP marketing method works most of the time. Done sporadically, some MSP marketing things work, some of the time.
Doing something is better than doing nothing. If you came here looking for the easy 1-2-3-repeat magical combination for MSP marketing success, I’m sorry – it just doesn’t exist. Apologies for the clickbait. Stick around, there’s some good stuff here. The most important lesson of all here is this: you can buy a marketing kit, you can take a course, you can hire an expert, you can do a hundred things. And you can still fail – so if you learn nothing else from this post: don’t invest money that you can’t afford to lose in any marketing campaign. Nothing works as fast as you’d like it to, and sometimes nothing works, period.
MSP Marketing isn’t as simple as “other MSPs found success doing this so you will, too.”
Is Cold Calling The Magic MSP Marketing Bullet?
Hell, no.
We use cold calling over other forms of marketing because we’re a cold calling company. So we talk about how well it works for MSP marketing quite a lot.
That’s how we make our money.
It benefits me for you to believe that it works better than anything else for MSP marketing, and I don’t shy away from my sharing my thoughts on other marketing methodologies. If you want to know what I think about things other than telemarketing, call me. I’ll tell you freely how much I hate this or that vendor or this or that software program or this or that idea.
I don’t know everything.
I don’t know much about a lot of things, actually. I know a lot about cold calling. I’ve worked with almost a thousand MSPs as of my editing this article in February 2021, so I know a lot about what hasn’t worked for a lot of the MSPs in the market.
If someone is trying to sell you something, how about you assume their first priority is building their business, and their next priority is helping you build yours? Your MSP marketing partners aren’t running a charity any more than you are. Would you tell a prospect to go work with a competitor?
No?
Well, maybe remember that when you call a sales or marketing expert for advice, that we are experts first at selling and marketing our own services.
Is Digital Marketing The Magic Bullet for MSP Marketing?
Who am I to tell you that your digital MSP marketing strategy for your Omaha-based (or Tampa, or Detroit, or Saratoga, or…) MSP won’t work? Is it working? No? Well, you either haven’t given it long enough or it doesn’t work. Try something new. Try something combined with that marketing strategy. Check out this article on the Datto website on measuring MSP marketing success!
Marketing Is Difficult to Measure
No, it’s actually not difficult to measure, it’s just difficult to measure when you don’t know what MSP marketing metrics you need to care about. Check out these articles in Smarter MSP to learn more about measuring your marketing investments!
Any one number isolated from other numbers can tell any story you want it to.
Which is what predatory MSP marketing companies bank on.
It’s just not as simple as money goes in this end and more money comes out on that end.
“I know half of my marketing works, I just don’t know which half!”
“Direct mail is ineffective.”
Is direct mail still working? Ask Some MSPs who are still using it!
“Cold calling is dead.”
Hear first hand about clients who are generating more than 1100% ROI from cold calling!
“BNI doesn’t work.”
“SEO is a waste of money.”
There are some things you can do immediately to increase the success of your SEO campaigns!
“The only thing that works is…”
Tell us, Reddit MSP expert who spends all their time on Reddit – what should we be doing differently?
Tell us, owner of the Facebook marketing company, what should we buy?
Tell us, owner of the LinkedIn marketing company, what should we buy?
Tell us, owner of the software company who also owns a digital marketing company, what should we buy?
Tell us, owner of the cold calling company who’s writing this blog right now, what should we buy?
So what actually works?
Until you know your numbers, you’ll never know what’s actually working for you.
Learn Some Of The KPIs You Need to Know To Measure MSP Marketing Success in 2021
We meet a company at an event, call them four or five times, add them to our newsletter, lose their business to a cheaper competitor, call and check in with them quarterly, and then win the contract a year later after their first provider doesn’t live up to the hype they sold them.
So, what won us the business?
That original trade show visit?
The calls we made?
The emails we sent?
No. What won us the business was our competitor failing to deliver as promised, while we continued to express our interest in their business. Then we demonstrated our ability to follow through on what we said we would do, staying engaged with them regularly, and just being good corporate citizens.
To win that business, we didn’t use “marketing”, we used process.
How Do You Make MSP Marketing Work For You?
MSP Marketing success comes from repeatable, measurable, improvable process.
One call doesn’t work. One event doesn’t work. One email doesn’t work. We have spent seven years measuring, defining, improving and changing our MSP markeing process. When someone comes to me and says they aren’t happy with the results of their MSP marketing company, the first thing I want to know is what are they measuring? How are they defining success?
Do you know what happened between the initial contact and that big win? Do you know how that process differed from the deal you just lost? No? That’s why your marketing isn’t working, or more accurately, why you don’t know if your marketing is working.
Losing Deals? Focus On Data Integrity!
Now let’s talk about cold calling, since that’s the one marketing thing I AM qualified to talk about.
MSP Marketing and Displacement Selling
For managed services, for accounting services, for marketing services, for any services – most of the time a company with the foresight and budget to outsource will already be getting their needs met in some way.
Good provider or bad, they “already have that”.
(Here’s a great webinar on how to overcome that objection!!!)
Here’s where it gets good, though: nobody is happy with a provider all the time, regardless of their relationship with them. Sure, you’ll get a “my cousin does this for us” and a “my husband’s brother does that for us” and so on and so forth here and there, but usually they’ve chosen a provider and they’re “living with” their choice, not delighting in it.
Use This Free Script for Objection Handling
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Cold calling isn’t just about that first introduction to a new company, it’s about creating a connection, learning about their needs and building a relationship. That takes time. It’s about knowing when and how to check in with someone. That’s process.
Want instant results? Looking for the magic MSP marketing bullet?
Cold calling isn’t for you.
Looking for repeatable and predictable MSP marketing results?
Cold calling works for MSP marketing.
SEO works for MSP marketing.
PPC works for MSP marketing.
Email works for MSP marketing.
Digital works for MSP marketing.
Looking for the magical MSP marketing combination?
Well, that doesn’t exist. It’s going to be different for everyone. So you have to test it all, and you have to keep testing it all the time. That’s the problem with any “done for you” marketing (including outsourced cold calling) – any one size fits all service will only fit 50% of the people using it. If you’re in the lucky 50%, hooray! If you’re not, time to roll up your sleeves and create your own process. The good news? There are plenty of experts that can help you do this.
Remember, you hire experts to help you get started, not do it for you for forever. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s time to learn. At least learn enough so that you can hold your outsourced partners accountable to basic performance metrics.
If it sounds too good to be true, it is. There’s no shortcut to successful marketing. You can make it a little easier, and you can make it work a little faster, and you can make it a whole lot better, but you can’t wake up tomorrow with it all magically fixed for you.
Which 50% of your marketing is working?
Find out, then learn how to fix the other half!
Want help? We offer training and consulting for those interested in building successful in-house processes. Email hello@managedsalespros.com to schedule some time to chat with us.