Ask an MSP owner if marketing matters, and almost everyone says yes. Ask what happens to marketing the moment a big project lands or a technician quits, and the answer tells you what they actually decided.
Most MSP marketing plans don't fail because the tactics were wrong. They fail because no one ever actually decided marketing gets to survive a busy month.
Every MSP hits a slow stretch at some point in the year where leads thin out and easing off marketing starts to feel like the responsible move. That instinct is understandable. It's also how one quiet stretch turns into a quiet quarter.
IT services are a tough racket. It’s easy to alternate between lots of work and opportunities, and drought. A lot of businesses approach this issue by going all in on their marketing efforts during low points and stopping completely when prospects start converting into clients.
This approach is flawed in many ways. First of all, it’s a lot of work crammed into a little bit of time, and second, it feels like you don’t get the return you should for the money you invest. The secret to properly promoting your managed services isn’t throwing money at the problem, it’s consciously going about it with strategy and forethought.
Marketing your business is one of the most crucial factors to its success. Unfortunately, it can also be one of the most expensive. To avoid this, you must plan a budget for your marketing initiatives. What follows is a step-by-step guide to crafting a budget that best fits your needs as a company.
2026 is looming larger and faster than you think. For many IT and managed service providers, marketing is a constant game of catch-up, even though a reactive approach is a recipe for being left behind.
It's time to get ahead of the curve. Let’s explore why planning your 2026 marketing strategy now is the most strategic move you can make for your business' future.
When you're struggling to keep your MSP afloat, marketing might feel like a luxury you can't afford. But in today's competitive market, visibility is viability. If prospects can’t find you online or in their inboxes, you simply don’t exist to them. Fortunately, you don’t need a six-figure budget to generate meaningful results. Strategic, time-efficient, and even free tools are available—if you know how to use them effectively, and have a plan.
2023 is already coming to an end and it’s a crucial time to lock in your plans and objectives for the coming year. The last few years have been a whirlwind for MSPs, and for many, that has been a good thing. With more and more businesses wanting to take compliance seriously thanks to insurance companies starting to ask them questions, to the sudden popularity of AI tools, MSPs have a lot more to add to their toolkit. On top of that, there’s still business communication like VoIP, physical security and access control, and a whole slew of remote/conferencing tools to help the modern business out with. An active, forward-thinking MSP can look like an amazing opportunity to a business owner who values technology and automation.
Let’s talk about how your MSP can capitalize on this and plan out your marketing for 2024.
If you’ve never really marketed your business, you’ve probably had a reason that you’ve avoided it. These reasons are likely quite valid…but we have a few reasons that you’ll want to reconsider that decision.
In Part 1 of this blog, we discussed what exactly SMART goals are; specifically, what your marketing goals need to be considered SMART. This next part of our blog will go through how to turn the common vague goal of “increasing revenue” into a SMART goal that you can use for your next marketing campaign.
A SMART goal or S.M.A.R.T goal is a goal that is written in a way that makes it clear what exactly you’re trying to accomplish, when, why, and how. First introduced in the ‘80s, this methodology is designed to help you establish goals in a way that your brain can transfer into actions - enabling you to better achieve the results that you are looking for.
There are several options available to MSPs to market their business and services, from social media to blog content to direct mail. With so many options available to your MSP, you may find it hard to know where to begin with your marketing. We recommend developing a documented marketing strategy to make sure your MSP marketing has a clear purpose and a schedule with time and resources to execute the initiatives.
“Marketing… how hard could it be, right?”
This is the position that many business owners take when they decide that it is time to market their services. They figure if they just have a website, a few social media accounts, and keep their doors unlocked during business hours, they’ll be set. Unfortunately for these business owners, they don’t have someone to show them the right way of marketing - having a plan.
Every business owner wants to succeed with their business, not just skate by. Marketing is a crucial aspect for your MSP to be able to succeed. If not done properly, your business can - and most likely will - fail.
Unsure where you’ve gone wrong when it comes to your MSP marketing efforts? Don’t worry; you’re not the only one. To help, we’ve put together a list of common mistakes that MSPs make when trying to promote their company, and what you can do to avoid falling prey to them.
For a lot of the things you do as a business, you probably have specific processes to follow, and general plans if certain situations happen. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t for your marketing. And, in all actuality, you’ll be much better off if you do have some sort of plan to follow.
Anyone who has spent time researching articles and blogs about B2B marketing strategies will tell you that there are countless sites that discuss the importance of video marketing in our current digital climate. In reality, however, there is a major difference between knowing that you should be marketing with video and actually marketing with video. The issue is no longer if you should use video in your marketing but how to begin developing a video strategy that gives you the results you’re looking for.
In a recent survey of small business owners, the most frequent response to the question regarding the biggest challenge to running a small business was marketing.
So, what are the best marketing strategies for small businesses who are just starting out marketing themselves? What about for small businesses who are struggling to achieve a positive ROI with the marketing they are currently doing?
When we talk about building a marketing strategy, we’re not talking about what combination of individual initiatives that you’re going to be using to market your services and solutions. Rather, we’re focusing on what should take place before you begin selecting initiatives when you’re developing your overall marketing strategy.
As time passes, seasons change, and with those changes come different avenues and opportunities that you may use to your marketing advantage. Simply put, some marketing tactics are just better suited for different times of year. Even so, they’ll still require a thoughtful and deliberate implementation.
A large part of running a successful initiative themed around a season is to understand the climate, in a manner of speaking, of your area. As you plan your initiative, you must be familiar with trends in society and business and their tendency to shift with the seasons. This means that you must be aware of a variety of variables as you plan out your marketing strategy. For instance, as the holiday season winds down, the use of seasonal B2C marketing is fully apparent. However, with a few changes in approach, there is no reason that B2B marketing can’t leverage similar factors in their approach as well.
From marketing to sales to service delivery, a company’s success is based on a series of goals that need to be met. However, setting clear, actionable goals is easier said than done.
S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym that helps businesses of all sizes and industries set these actionable goals. It stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.
