MSP Marketing: How To Bounce Back From Marketing Failures

Marketing success for your MSP is never a sure thing. While it is understandable to want to give up if you don’t see success, the reality is unless you market your business, potential leads won’t know your MSP exists. Here are 3 takeaways to learn from your unsuccessful marketing campaigns.

Do You Feel Your MSP Marketing Isn’t Working?

In today’s business environment, marketing, specifically online marketing, is more critical than ever. As so many businesses come online, your competitive advantage can be blunted by the sheer volume not only of competitors but the overall “noise” of activity.

We recently asked if you felt your SEO strategies weren’t working for your MSP. SEO is only a part of marketing and relies on other methods to develop a complete marketing campaign. With this in mind, we’re asking you if you feel that your overall marketing strategy has provided tangible results.

If the answer is no, instead of quitting and leaving your business to fate, or, worse, your competitors, now is the opportune time to reevaluate what happened, learn from it, and change your strategy. Here are five takeaways to learn from an unsuccessful marketing campaign.

1. Give Your Marketing More Time to Work

We get it; you need to have the phones ring. However, even in the best business environment, generating leads takes time. For example, the rule of thumb is that your audience needs at least seven exposures to your advertising before they even notice it, let alone take action, even for well-understood industries. With so many things vying for your audience’s attention, breaking through the noise can be difficult, especially for a poorly understood service such as managed IT.

This means you must be more patient before declaring your marketing a bust. For example, if you’re interested in SEO which is essential for bringing your MSP services in front of searchers, it can take up to six months before you see any results. So, yes, it is understandable after spending six months stuck on page two of Google for MSPs to feel that SEO doesn’t work. However, quitting won’t bring you any leads. While easier said than done, you’re going to have to keep at it.

2. It's Time to Think Like a Customer

When you create a campaign, there's a chance that you are too close to recognizing the shortcomings in your marketing strategies. This can make it difficult to understand why your campaigns aren't gaining traction and generating leads. To overcome this, developing a buyer persona makes sense. 

A buyer persona allows you to view your marketing materials through a customer's eyes and take an honest look at your product. This means if you, as a customer, find that your marketing materials need to provide the answers you are looking for, you need to evaluate your messaging. The reality is if you can't find the benefit in your services, neither can potential customers.

3. Study Your Data

In today's digital environment, your data is the most effective tool you have to understand your customers. Whether it's when your data drops or increases, it's essential that you track your website's data. Your data will tell you the customers' who, what, and where, allowing you to tailor your marketing to gain their attention better the next time you run a campaign. Some things to look for from your data include the following:

• Top search terms (keywords) and pages
• Locations (especially if you serve multiple locations)
• Traffic sources (direct, organic, or paid)

4. Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

There are a lot of “marketing experts” out there that want to sell you a book or philosophy about that one secret method that will make you a six or seven-figure MSP. They tell you all you need is this specific type of website, or all you need to do is run ads on Google, or all you need to do is purchase their course and come to their monthly webinars and buy into their services.

There is no silver bullet. If something works extremely well for one MSP in one city, it doesn’t mean it's guaranteed to work for you in yours. 

And listen, we get it. We LOVE the idea of inbound marketing. We love the idea of being a social media rockstar. We love the idea of building that one incredible deliverable and wowing the pants off of every local business in the area. And while it’s possible, it’s just not likely. You can’t just rely on one thing, and throw your hands up in the air when it doesn’t work. It’s best to take a measured, multi-path approach to marketing your MSP that includes a little bit of everything. You get better coverage this way, and you give your MSP more opportunities to capture a wider audience.

5. Finally, Ask For Help

Marketing isn't easy; that's why there's an entire industry geared toward helping businesses market their services. This is especially true in today's environment, when your competition can be anyone with a website and a Twitter account. Moreover, marketing is no longer just printed materials, TV or radio ads, or even the email of yesteryear. To market your business in today's environment, you need to understand social media, copywriting, graphic design, data analysis, and more. Aren't you already wearing enough hats by running your MSP? Do you need to add another bucket to your list?

Your MSP Marketing Can Be Successful

Marketing your MSP doesn't have to be a mystery or a matter of luck. Tried and true techniques are designed to help your business break through the noise and get noticed. However, doing so requires understanding not only marketing best practices but also the business of managed IT. We are one of the few marketing agencies with experience working with MSPs, and it shows.

As a full-service marketing agency, we offer MSPs a wealth of services designed to help your business to get in front of an audience and convert them into customers. Instead of having to wear half a dozen marketing hats, when you partner with us, the only hat you need to wear is that of a business owner. We'll help you get the leads; you focus on closing them. Call 888-546-4384 today to schedule a conversation.