No Fluff MSP Marketing

Bob started his MSP journey with a Co-Managed client. This experience helped him refine his Co-Managed offering and he was gracious enough to share some key considerations when marketing to Co-Managed prospects. He also shares insight into ongoing management of these accounts.

I hope you find this as helpful as I did. Thanks for jumping on Bob!

This happens to all of us and we'll happen even more as you start getting additional leads outside of referrals.

In this episode, we lay out how to reengage MSP prospects that went dark on you...

I have personally failed at this for YEARS, but have found recent success and wanted to share what we're doing differently to cultivate strong referral partners!

Whether you focus on one vertical, a few verticals, or all verticals, this episode will provide insight into the power of niches and how a successful MSP owner uses this to his advantage.

Dan is a long time friend and was gracious enough to jump on the podcast to explain how and why he focuses completely on a single vertical.

Thanks again for listening and supporting this podcast. We do not take it for granted!

Bonus- Random Marketing Idea

I used to do this a lot when I first started. It's not a "silver bullet" but did help us get a great Co-Managed client that added $6k MRR.

It's worth checking out and potentially adding it to your marketing activities. 

Short and sweet this week!

Tom Lawrence used to present "protecting digital you" to local banks for their clients. This was an end user facing presentation that did not get in the weeds of the technicals.

We have been leaning more into this strategy of targeting clients that have an audience of potential clients.

In this episode, we break down the obvious idea and some ways to capitalize on it!

You never want to just outsource your marketing. The MSPs that own their marketing are the ones that consistently grow.

That being said, the chances of you doing everything in-house is very low.

You may have website developers, videographers, graphic designers, advertising specialist, etc that you hire to assist in executing on your plan.

Managing marketing vendors is a skill, like everything else.

Being the "general contractor" means you need to have a good understanding of how the pieces fit together, have clear communication, and expectations.

In this episode, we outline tips and advice to make sure you're getting the most out of your marketing vendors!

Adding new business is absolutely critical to growing your MSP. Marketing will communicate your value and grow your revenue, but don't leave your current clients out of your campaigns!

We consistently adding thousands in MRR every quarter form our existing client base, and they're happy to pay.

In this episode, Collin (Alltek Services Account Manager) and I discuss our approach to client satisfaction, ongoing reviews, and upsell opportunities.

We share actionable tips to help you improve the Account Management process at your MSP!

Not the sexiest topic in the world, but an important piece of your marketing that's easy to do.

Are you going to get tons of leads from an email or printed newsletter? Nope.

But it does build your authority and client engagement. 

In this episode, we discuss what content to include and how newsletters have a positive impact at our MSP. 

Yes, you should have a sales presentation. Don't just show up empty handed or with a sad looking sales document. 

In this episode we cover qualifying and questions prior to the meeting, building your sales folder and supporting documents, presenting effectively in the meeting, and a quick tip on follow up. 

Everyone is screaming potential recession, but all is green for go in the MSP space and many other sectors. 

However, it's inevitable that a recession will occur... at some point.

In this episode, Taher breaks down challenges and opportunities from a marketing perspective for your MSP.

This is a combination of input from the owner of Alltek, Taher, MSP Camp members, and members of our peer group, so I'm not going to pretend it's all me on this one!

In this episode, we start off with some technical aspects of website management. This part can be a little dense, but it is important to know many of these whether you're doing your own website or not. 

Next up, we dive into some specific recommendations based on what has worked at our MSP and what could have the highest impact on your website.  

It's a long one, but worth it if you're looking to improve your website and actually start getting leads through your site!

There is no silver bullet in marketing or getting more referrals. In this episode we cover how we stimulate referrals within our client base. Nothign fancy, just some ideas that can help you get more referrals to grow your MSP! 

It's nice to hear how businesses are using Telemarketing to grow their business, but it's also beneficial to hear from those actually doing the work!

James cold called me a few months ago and his pitch was great.

James shares some excellent advice from the perspective of the caller!

There are two primary activities MSPs think they should do when they start marketing their business. They believe they should be cold calling and advertising right away. 

While this may pay off in the short run, it is a detriment to your long term growth. You need to learn to think like a marketer and growing organically before you spend money on either of these.

In this episode we cover whether you should be advertising, when you should start advertising, and mistakes to avoid when you do!

If you've listened to more than a few episodes, you already know we're HUGE advocates of having a dedicated marketing person at your MSP. In this episode we outline HOW to go about doing this.

We also interview Steven and Maddie who started as interns here to get their insight into what they were looking for in a position and expectations. I really lucked out with these two! Not only are they awesome, they're actually great at being on a podcast!

Check out our Free Guide on msp-camp.com for a concise overview of how and why to hire a marketing intern.

Adam is an entrepreneur and marketing expert. He's never studied either in any formal way, he just gets it. In this episode, we go over the history of his businesses, his successes, failures, and what makes him stand out from the dozens of other gyms near him. He is almost always at full capacity at his gyms. That's hard to do when you're charging a premium rate in a crowded space!

While he may not run or market an MSP, the lessons in this episode can teach us all a thing or two about the psychology of growing your business and thinking outside the box!

This one starts a little slow but the conversation really picks up about 1/3 the way in so make sure you stick around!

I tell this story a lot because it taught me a lot

Creating true differentiators is difficult but absolutely required. In this podcast, I go over our exact differentiators and ideas for additional differentiators to give you some ideas on how to develop your own!

Special Guest Blackpoint

In this episode we speak with Justin at Blackpoint. We currently use Blackpoint at Alltek Services. This podcast isn't designed to sell you on Blackpoint, it's to communicate WHY every MSP should have an Managed Detection and Response offering and how to market and sell it to your clients and prospects.

While discussing cybersecurity can be a challenge at times, MDR seems to hit home with prospects. Positioning it correctly is a must!

Full disclaimer, we no longer do monitoring agreements. However, we did for years and they worked great! You get your foot in the door, your backup and security products in place, but support is hourly. Make sure you get a block of time at an increased hourly over your managed clients and it's a great partnerships.

In this episode, we go over how to do this properly, red flags form prospects, and how you can market this as a differentiator. 

I saw a post recently about an MSP that gave away a Tesla... Needless to say I was immediately intrigued. 

Ironically, most of the comments were fairly negative and the community thought it was a bad idea.

Well, I commented how much I loved the idea, and the guy that came up with the idea responded.

In this podcast, I interview Hunter with ComTech to go over how he came up with the idea, executing on it, and of course, the results!

A quick note, I love how many MSPs are open and willing to be on the podcast. They don't care about "competition" they're just willing to help. I hope you find value in this conversation. I know it got me motivated to think even bigger!

We've only purchased a booth a few times at our MSP. Each time provided good leads and we have added new clients from manning a booth. 

In short, yes, I would recommend getting a booth, but with a few caveats we'll be discussing in today's episode!

Public Relations is basically free marketing. Any time you're featured on an article, interviewed for a podcast, get featured in a paper/article, that is PR.

Like everything with marketing, it's not just going to just happen. 

If you have a cool event or something special happening at your MSP, you have to pitch it!

These news outlets are as desperate for content as any other business (if not more so), so pitching them on good content has a fairly high success rate. 

In this podcast, we review how to successfully use Public Relations to grow your MSP!

MSP Camp Update:

I've heard MSPs say their website is just to look professional and has never brought them a lead... that is insanity!! Your website should be one of your main lead drivers. 

Whether it's SEO or having your campaigns point to a landing page, you should be getting leads from your website. Period.

SEO is one of those topics that is just... dense. We all get those weekly emails form "SEO" companies trying to pitch their worthless services. If you're not investing $2,000-$3,000 a month specifically in SEO, these types of companies are not going to do much and that's a fact.

However, very few of us want to invest that kind of money in just one facet of our marketing strategy. So, what do we do?

In this episode with eBridge Marketing Solutions, we lay out SEO fundamentals and some low hanging fruit you can do in your MSP without having to hire an expensive SEO agency. 

I have to give it Devin, he truly cares about this community. He didn't try to pitch his service or make thing "complicated." he just gave great advice. This is rare for many vendors and I personally appreciate it a lot!!

I have always been passionate about video. I used to edit Dragon Ball Z videos to Linkin Park and created simple stop motion videos with my toys when I was a kid. They all sucked, but it was fun! Not much has changed :)

I hear it all the time from MSP owners, "get me in front of them and I close the deal." Yes, because they're as hot as it gets. 

You've heard it a million times that most MSPs grow off of referrals, which is true. But what happens when you do start bringing in organic marketing leads?

In this short episode, we break down expectations of each type of lead and why your close rate will inevitably decline as you build out your marketing foundation. 

The MSP Lead Pyramid is important to know as you decide where to put your time and money in your MSP marketing!

If you're in the MSP space, it's very likely you've heard of Art Gross and Breach Secure Now.

There are many cybersecurity awareness training and dark web monitoring services out there, so why does Breach Secure Now seem to stand out from the rest? What is it about their brand and marketing that has made them a leader?

In this episode Art shares some incredible marketing and business advice on going to market, differentiators, how to scale properly, and general wisdom from a business owner who manages an MSP and an amazing channel focused business.

This has been my favorite podcast episode to date. I hope you enjoyed it and learn something new to start implementing at your MSP!

Here's a quick idea to gain traction on social media. The reality of being the IT guys is we just don't come top of mind for praise or reviews. However, our clients do recognize how much we do for them. 

Being proactive in asking for a shout out on social media can be a great tool for social proof and to build your audience on social media. 

Jeanne and I have been in a peer group together for years! She is a marketing and sales expert and I've learned a ton from her over the years (including how to effectively use telemarketing).

Jeanne built a very successful MSP she started 36 years ago. Since then, they have shifted to becoming a Cloud Service Provider offering white label cloud solutions specifically to the channel. 

In this episode, she will outline the competitive advantage of being able to have the "cloud" discussion and how easy it is to sell cloud to prospects and customers. 

Every single prospect over 20 seats this year has asked me about reporting... That used to NEVER happen!

It's important that we consistently listen to the market and adapt. For years we thought "no one even looks at these reports."

Yes, because the 20 page reports of the past sucked. We didn't look at them, the client didn't look at them, they were useless. 

In this episode, we sit down with the VP of Channel at ScalePad/Lifecycle Manager to discuss effective reporting you should be providing to your clients.

We've used their product for years and it was a MAJOR player in easily replacing 1,000+ Windows 7 computers a few years ago. Don't miss this episode.

The title says it all. We published a price calculator right on the website. 

In this episode we explain WHY we did it, results of the effort, and some guidance on why this may or may not fit your business model. 

We've been building MSP Camp for months and very excited to officially launch!

MSP Camp provides the marketing campaigns we've run to consistently grow our MSP. In addition to the content of the campaigns, we include Marketing Guides to learn and execute on your marketing, Video library that you can brand for your own MSP, a store to request custom marketing material, and the Marketing and Sales sheets we use to impress our prospects and customers. 

This site is only going to get better. We're adding new high quality content every single week.

If you've enjoyed the podcast and willing to support us in building this, we would be forever grateful!

All memberships start with a 2-day free trial so you can "Try before you buy"

Microsoft seems to be getting some bad publicity lately in the MSP community. Whatever your feelings on Microsoft, it can be an amazing tool for prospecting and selling. 

The Business Premium license has been a differentiator in our market. We've really learned the ins and outs of M365 and use it to our advantage. 

Here's the kicker though, if our team learned a ton about M365 Business Premium but our marketing/sales teams did not put the effort in to learn it, do you think it would be a differentiator?

I hear MSPs say they don't want their sales people to be "technical" or "They don't need to know that." I personally believe the Marketing/Sales teams should be trained in detail about all new services/offerings and should be pitching new ones themselves. THAT'S how you become a marketing/sales organization that happens to provide technology.

Having great content means nothing if you're not using it!

Yes, distributing it (as covered in a previous podcast) is important for prospecting, but don't drop the ball when you have a prospect interested in your service.

We use content religiously to educate, engage, and move prospects down the funnel to make a buying decision.

I never follow up with, "Just checking in." I provide value with the content I have that answers specific questions or pain points they discussed with me during the sales process.

There are tons of ways to use your content to prospect and SELL.

In this 2 part series, we'll be discussing the most 2 important aspect of marketing your MSP. The King and Queen.

Content - The King

Without good content, you might as well be shouting into the wind. No one wants to see an infographic on how backups work, but they may be interested in "Is your MSP actually protecting your business? 10 nontechnical questions to ask your IT Provider about your cybersecurity." One is above their heads, the other gives them value right away.

Creating great content is so important. It will make you stand out and be a resource to your prospects.

Distribution - The Queen

You have an amazing piece of content you just created. Great! Now what do you do with it?

Great content alone is like building a cathedral in a dessert. You have to be able to effectively distribute that content. If you get both of these pieces down, you'll have no problem gaining new clients.

In this 2 part series, we'll be discussing the most 2 important aspect of marketing your MSP. The King and Queen. 

Content - The King

Without good content, you might as well be shouting into the wind. No one wants to see an infographic on how backups work, but they may be interested in "Is your MSP actually protecting your business? 10 nontechnical questions to ask your IT Provider about your cybersecurity." One is above their heads, the other gives them value right away. 

Creating great content is so important. It will make you stand out and be a resource to your prospects. 

Distribution - The Queen

You have an amazing piece of content you just created. Great! Now what do you do with it?

Great content alone is like building a cathedral in a dessert. You have to be able to effectively distribute that content. If you get both of these pieces down, you'll have no problem gaining new clients. 

News flash, getting leads for an MSP is difficult! Gurus can talk about building "$XXXXX revenue in 90 days!" but it's not that easy. Trust me. 7 years and millions of ARR later, I still get anxious when a week or two goes by without a new lead. 

So, Remarketing is a MUST! Remarketing is simple. Someone visits your website within a set geographic range, now you can target them on other platforms such as Google Display Ads, YouTube videos, Facebook/Instagram, LinkedIn and others. 

Staying in front of your prospects with unique content over a longer period of time improves conversion rates and drives more leads to your MSP.

In this episode, we discuss how to effectively use remarketing at your MSP.

First of all, don't even worry if no one shows up to your webinar at first. Like everything, consistency pays off. Plus, you'll get lots of great content for social media and your website.

Very few MSPs run webinars. I'm not exactly sure why. They bring in new business and builds satisfaction within your client base. 

In this episode, we break down exactly how to host webinars for your clients and prospects and how to get people to actually show up.

Why Quarterly Marketing Campaigns work

"When you're trying to communicate EVERYTHING, you're communicating NOTHING" 

We discovered a long time ago that you have to market the least common denominator. What is a specific service you can market for an entire quarter? That will be much more effective than trying to market your whole stack all year long. 

Quarterly campaigns keep the discussion to one service or industry at a time and will make your marketing more memorable and lead to more opportunities. 

Video Content For The Win

When I first started at my MSP I knew nothing about MSPs and nothing about Marketing. One thing I believed in from day one was the power of video.

We have consistently used video which has significantly increased our reach and lead count over the years.

Most people are afraid of video. They have paralysis by analysis and never do it. Don't be a perfectionist. 

Put together a script around something you think your target market would find interesting, whip out your smart phone, and get filming!