MSPs: Grow the Business with Marketing (While Focusing on What You Do Best)
Managed services providers (MSPs) must be good at a wide variety of things, but marketing often isn’t one of them.
With so many applications, endpoints, security threats and compliance standards to worry about, it’s a never-ending race for MSPs to keep up with what’s new while still maintaining current systems. With that said, high-performing MSPs know that growing their business is about more than just supporting a new cloud computing platform or mastering another cyber defense protocol. Steady growth also requires storytelling and connecting with potential and current customers about what you have to offer, what separates you from the pack, and the return on investment they’ll see as a result of outsourcing various aspects of their IT management.
This part of the business isn’t about technical chops or uptime rates, it’s about marketing. And marketing is often not a core competency for MSPs since it’s so far removed from the day-to-day activities for which clients engage them.
An added wrinkle is that marketing in this industry must not only establish a brand and build awareness for the MSP, but it also must educate prospects on why they even need to engage with an MSP to begin with. Many businesses don’t realize the scope and scale of their own IT operations, the opportunities for improvement, the best practices they should be employing, and the undefended entry points bad actors can pounce on.
Connecting with Your Audience
Sales and marketing efforts are as much about style as they are substance. Customers and prospects care deeply about getting accurate and useful information from their business partners and vendors, but how those messages are delivered and their overall context is critical to them actually being looked at and digested.
MSPs often face an uphill battle in this regard because many of their customers and potential clients don’t know all that much about the nuances of IT. They recognize its importance and complexity, but they’re not that invested in becoming experts themselves because they need to worry about running their own business and what’s happening in their particular industry.
Therefore, what makes MSPs so attractive to SMBs that can benefit from outsourcing IT services is also the challenge: More often than not, organizations don’t even know what they don’t know. This puts the onus on the MSP to educate them about the benefits of outsourced IT and the perils of going it alone and potentially not addressing the full gamut of IT issues that make their business vulnerable to performance issues and cybercrime.
Acting as a trusted advisor and not just a vendor is part of what makes the relationship between MSPs and their clientele so special, but it’s also a heavy lift to be continually educating and updating non-technical counterparts on a host of complex issues. This means meeting these companies where they are in terms of their technical expertise and experiences, as well as using language and ramifications they can relate to and understand.
Making It Easier for MSPs
For several years, Kaseya has been assisting MSPs clear this hurdle with its free MSP Sales and Marketing Jumpstart offering. This program encompasses
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