MSP Marketing: What You Need to Know And Where to Start

As an MSP, you probably know just about everything there is to know about managing IT environments. But when it comes to MSP marketing, there’s a good chance it’s a very different story.

For many MSPs, marketing is a whole new skill set – and there’s not much crossover with the skills that made you an IT expert in the first place. But if your MSP business is going to be a success, you’ll need customers to know who you are. This creates a key challenge for new and smaller MSPs who need to understand where to start.

If this is you, don’t worry. You’re far from the first IT expert who’s had to learn marketing from scratch. Luckily, you’ve come to the right place.

MSP Marketing vs. Sales vs. Advertising

Before we can discuss the best sales and marketing strategies, it’s helpful to understand the difference between sales, marketing, and advertising. Despite significant overlap, they refer to distinct concepts.

1. Marketing

Marketing is an umbrella term for any activities you do to gain customer’s attention and convince them of your value. It could include anything from uploading a YouTube video to writing a blog or commissioning a TV ad.

2. Sales

Unlike marketing, sales involves direct communications with a potential customer with the goal of converting them. Generally, this occurs after they’ve already interacted with marketing material.

3. Advertising

If marketing refers to the overall strategy of promoting a product, advertising is one of many tactics this may involve. Examples could include advertising on Google, social media, YouTube, or traditional media like TV, radio, or billboard ads.

Though distinct, each of these three categories should work closely together towards the same goal: creating paying customers.

How to Choose the Right MSP Marketing Strategy for Your Business

To do marketing well, you’ve got to treat it like a system and not a series of random events. That means doing marketing on a daily basis, a weekly basis, and a monthly basis.

Paul Green, Owner – MSP Marketing Edge

Here’s the biggest challenge every team will face when it comes to marketing: Time. Ultimately, there are a near endless amount of marketing strategies and tactics you can try.

Unless you’re an enterprise with a 20-person marketing team, there’s a good chance you’re going to have to learn to pick your battles. So where do you start?

1. Understand resource constraints

Whatever strategy you choose, you’ll be constrained by time and money in some way. Even if you’re using entirely free marketing channels and doing all the work yourself – it’s still going to take time.

It’s important to clearly define what budget you have, which people resources are available, and how much time you or others are willing to dedicate to marketing. This will allow you to prioritize what tactics will have the biggest impact.

2. Understand your target customer

There’s not much point in creating an influencer-based TikTok campaign if your audience is all over-40s who spend their time on LinkedIn. It’s important to understand where your customers spend their time online, what they value, and how they research MSP services – if at all.

Smaller MSPs will likely need to choose the one or two tactics that are going to have the most impact – so it’s hugely vital that you understand what will appeal most to your audience.

Perhaps that’s video tutorials, regular LinkedIn content, or something else.

3. Competitor analysis

Another great place to start is to understand what your competitors are doing. Ultimately, their customers will have similar challenges and behaviors as yours – so this can be a helpful acid test for what works. If your competitors are prioritizing expert-led video content on LinkedIn – there’s a good chance this will work for you as well. Attend industry events to socialize with peers and study competition. Here’s a top MPS events for you to explore.

But perhaps more importantly, it also gives you a sense of what they’re not doing, and therefore how you can stand out by offering something unique.

Building a marketing strategy can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. While companies can and do spend thousands of dollars and hours working out their strategy – it’s not essential.

Having clear answers to these three questions will put you in good stead for an effective and well-targeted marketing strategy.

The 10 Most Important MSP Marketing Strategies

When it comes to MSP marketing, knowing where to start can be a real challenge. To do that, you need to understand your options. Ultimately, there are a near limitless number of tactics and strategies you can use – and the sky really is the limit here.

That being said, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Some strategies are more popular than others for good reason. If you don’t know where to start, picking two or three tactics from this list will be a great choice.

1. Website marketing

If you’ve done no marketing for your business whatsoever, building a website is the best place to start. It’s the cornerstone of your digital presence and the first thing potential customers look for when scoping out your business. The best way to turn off potential prospects is to have an outdated website – or none at all.

Website marketing can take different forms. At its most basic, you’ll need a few pages about your services, what it’s like working with you, and a contact us page. This will give potential leads something to look into, and a means of contacting you when they’re ready.

But websites are also a really effective tool for a whole range of marketing campaigns for one key reason: It’s entirely yours.

Unlike your social media accounts, the website can be completely designed, customized, and tracked by you – giving you total visibility over who lands on your website and what content they’re engaging with.

For this reason, most successful B2B marketing strategies are geared around sending traffic to the website in one form or another.

There are many different ways you can do this. The most popular is to create regular blog content that can attract viewers from Google or social media. You can also create videos, landing pages, or really anything else. Whatever content you’re using, make sure there’s a clear journey through your website for prospects to follow – usually something that ends with a contact us page.

Benefits

• Demonstrate your experience and expertise
• Give customers a digital shop window through which to learn about your company
• Track what content is being viewed and by whom
• Design bespoke customer journeys through calls-to-action

2. Social media marketing

You should be active on social media through either a company page or personal page. This is an absolute must in today’s world. At the very least, post news and company updates on the company page and share it via your personal page.

Pete Matheson, Former MSP Founder and Content Creator

Similar to (and arguably a part of) content marketing, this refers to any activities you do across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. Different brands will prefer different channels (depending on their audience), but effective social media marketing is a must for any modern business.

Alongside your website, social media marketing effectively acts as a digital shop window for the business. It helps warm leads understand who you are and assess your legitimacy.

It also helps you to grow your own audience and reach people online who aren’t already looking for your services. Again, the goal here is to create engaging, informative content that demonstrates your expertise and educates your audience.

If you can achieve that – you’ll be at the front of customers’ minds when they need an MSP.

The great thing about social media marketing is it can overlap nicely with many other strategies and techniques on this list. Content created for website, YouTube, or SEO can be posted on LinkedIn or Twitter and form part of your social media presence.

Another benefit is that it doesn’t cost anything other than the time and resources required to create content. On the other hand, however, the competition for effective social media marketing is high, requiring a consistent, effective, and often unique approach to content creation in order to stand out.

Benefits:

• Add a personal aspect to your marketing;
• Another digital shop window for your business;
• Engage with customers in spaces they already spend time.

3. Pay-per-click (PPC)

Pay-per-click is by far the most popular type of advertising – and is now common across search engines like Google and all major social media platforms. As the name would suggest, advertisers are charged based on the number of users that click on the ad. Most ads you see on the internet will be some form of PPC, whether that’s the paid results in the Google SERP or sponsored posts on LinkedIn or Twitter.

With so many different types of PPC advertising, it can be difficult to know where to spend your money. The best place to start is to identify where your audience is. Generally for B2B businesses, this is going to be predominantly LinkedIn, Google Search, and (to a lesser extent) Twitter.

The benefit of PPC is it allows you to reach a much wider audience than, for instance, taking out a TV or billboard ad. It also allows you to be much more targeted about who you’re showing ads to, and to gather data to prove it’s working.

In theory, anybody can learn to run a PPC campaign – and there are plenty of useful tutorials on YouTube and elsewhere. But in practice, PPC has become increasingly complex and specialized over the years – so most organizations prefer to work with a third-party PPC specialist.

Benefits:

• Paid ads can create tangible leads;
• Digital ads can be clearly tracked, with a tangible ROI per lead;
• You only pay for the ads that customers actually click on.

4.  Search engine optimization (SEO)

If a customer goes into Google and types ‘managed service providers near me’, there’s a lot riding on whether (and how high) your company ranks in the search results. That’s why SEO is so important. It refers to a whole range of tools and techniques that organizations use to help their website rank on Google.

SEO practices generally fall into one of two categories – though these aren’t mutually exclusive and are often used together:

• Technical SEO – This involves meeting technical website requirements which make your website easier for users to navigate and for Google to crawl. These factors include accessibility, website architecture, loading speed, and a whole range of other factors.
• Content-based SEO – Creating blogs, webpages, and other content that’s associated with relevant search terms you want to rank for. At its most basic, this could simply involve creating articles or FAQs to answer common questions your audience is asking. The goal here is to ensure potential customers land on your website after searching queries that are relevant to your business.

The key benefit of SEO is simple: better rankings = more website viewers = more leads. But the increasing popularity of SEO means competition for those all-important rankings is high.

And while SEO itself doesn’t cost any money (posting a blog is ultimately free), the resources required to run a successful strategy can be extensive.

Much like with PPC, organizations will generally use SEO and content specialists (ie a marketing agency, freelancers, in-house employees) to define and run these campaigns.

Benefits:

• No upfront cost for posting digital content;
• Create content out of genuine customer queries;
• Gain more leads through higher search visibility.

5.  Content marketing

Content marketing is an umbrella term for any marketing based on blogs, articles, case studies, social media, videos, and more. Whatever the format, if you’re creating something for your audience to read, scroll through, or watch – this is content marketing. If you’re also running an SEO strategy, you’ll find significant overlap between the two.

Today, most brands will do content marketing in one form or another. That might be posting regular blogs, maintaining a social media presence, creating videos for YouTube, or inviting potential customers to a webinar.

There are a whole range of options available, and it’s important to choose the content types and channels that will most appeal to your target audience.

The benefit of content marketing is it allows you to demonstrate your expertise. Most advertising (and to a certain extent, SEO) is generally pretty product-specific – which is great for customers who are ready to buy.

Content marketing targets people who are further back in the journey – aiming to answer the ‘why’ instead of just the ‘what’. The best content marketing is anything that displays the unique personality, expertise, and approach of your business.

Benefits:

• Demonstrate expertise and personality;
• Educate readers rather than just selling to them;
• Explain the ‘why’ of your service as well as the ‘what’.

6.  Email marketing

Email marketing is another popular channel. It involves sending curated marketing messages to a list of contacts that you build up over time.

The key benefit here is simple: It allows you to create incredibly targeted campaigns. Email marketing is the only channel where you can choose exactly who sees what content. In practice, this means you can send curated messages to people based on pre-defined factors like job title, industry, seniority, and size of company.

You could, for instance, send specific messages to CIOs, all eCommerce companies, or simply anybody who downloaded a specific piece of content.

Email marketing is a hugely effective tool because it allows you to automate and closely track your marketing efforts. The challenge, though, is getting the marketing list in the first place.

The prevalence of marketing emails means customers are careful not to sign up for too many. There are also increasingly strict data protection laws (such as GDPR) governing how you can collect and use customer data.

One popular tactic is to use gated content, which means readers have to enter their contact details into a form to access a particular piece of content – often a high-value asset like an eBook or whitepaper.

From there, organizations can send curated emails based on the individual assets the lead has already viewed.

Benefits:

• Create incredibly targeted campaigns;
• Email communications can be incredibly personalized;
• Effective email can nurture customers from initial interest right through to conversion.

7.  Videos, podcasts, and webinars

Visual media is another increasingly popular way for organizations to get their message out into the world. It’s an effective way to demonstrate your expertise while placing the people that make up your business at the center of your brand.

Marketing strategies like SEO, social media, and website content have become increasingly competitive and saturated in the last few years. It’s harder to get your content in front of readers, and it’s harder to convince them of your argument once you have.

While these methods still have their place – many organizations have turned to visual media as the best way to demonstrate their expertise and authenticity.

But it doesn’t have to be either/or. Video content can be uploaded to eg YouTube and shared via your website, email, or social media platforms. This is a great way to make these strategies more impactful, authentic, and expert-led.

For MSPs, there is a particular draw here: Your people and expertise are a huge part of what you’re selling. This is particularly true for smaller MSPs.

Customers might assume that larger, more established businesses have more expertise – but this doesn’t have to be the case. Putting your people at the center of your marketing efforts is a great way to prove that it isn’t.

Benefits:

• Demonstrate your personality and expertise;
• Email communications can be incredibly personalized;
• Effective email can nurture customers from initial interest right through to conversion.

8.  Account-based marketing (ABM)

Unlike many of the options on this list, this doesn’t refer to a particular type of content. Instead, it’s about what you do with it – and who sees it. Account-based marketing (ABM) refers to any marketing communications targeted toward a specific company or person.

ABM allows organizations to proactively identify and target customers that would be an ideal fit for them. This is a much more proactive form of marketing than many solutions on this list. If you’re looking to target larger organizations or leads within a particular industry, ABM is a great place to start.

This can also be particularly useful if you’re a smaller MSP since one or two clients could make a huge difference to the success and growth of your business.

But there’s another benefit: Targeting. With a bit of research on the company and its key stakeholders, you can create incredibly personalized and specific messages.

This means you can talk directly to your target customers, discussing challenges and solutions that are specifically relevant to their role, business, and goals. Done right, this can be a hugely effective way of converting high-value leads.

But with opportunity comes risk. The best ABM campaign in the world can’t guarantee the target customer will convert. Essentially, you’re putting all your eggs in one basket.

If the lead doesn’t bite, you’ve essentially wasted the time and resources you put into targeting them. This is the key trade-off that all companies have to consider when deciding if ABM is right for them.

Benefits:

• Target specific customers you want to attract;
• Create incredibly personalized content;
• Speak directly to the challenges and priorities of one specific company or persona.

9.  Review and comparison sites

Encourage referrals by sending a gift out to those people who have referred you to their friend or colleague. $80 worth of cake and champagne is a drop in the ocean when you have the potential to win a contract worth hundreds or thousands per month in recurring revenue.

Pete Matheson, Former MSP Founder and Content Creator

Testimonials, reviews, and other advocacy content can play a huge role in helping to attract and convert new customers. This makes them a valuable part of any successful B2B marketing campaign.

One great way to do this is through review sites like UpCity, Clutch, and cloudtango. These are popular comparison sites that companies often use to explore and compare options. Much like with your website and social media profiles, potential customers are often looking at these sites to assess how established and legitimate your company is. Having well-maintained profiles is therefore a really helpful way of getting your name out there.

Of course, you can’t actually write the reviews yourself (at least not on any reputable sites…). But you can identify which sites are the best fit for you, and ensure your company profile is complete. You can also encourage clients to fill out reviews by asking nicely (a surprisingly effective strategy) or offering a small incentive in return.

Some sites will also allow you to pay to boost your rankings, which could be another effective MSP marketing strategy.

Benefits:

• Leads are more likely to trust existing customers than marketing material;
• Review sites can act as another digital shop window;
• High rankings on these sites can often be a significant lead-generation tool.

10. Case studies and testimonials

Of course, review sites aren’t the only place you can create advocacy content. Publishing case studies, testimonials, and more can be a really helpful way to discuss your successful projects.

This can take multiple forms. It can be as simple as having a few client testimonials on your website or social media. It can also involve longer, more detailed content that describes the challenges the client was facing and explains in detail how you solved them – and the value you added along the way.

Many companies like to design their case studies as downloadable .pdf assets they can send to individual prospects. Others find case study videos a better way of telling the story and catching people’s eye.

The benefit here is that, unlike with review sites, it allows you to control the narrative. It means you can choose the customers who have a good relationship with you and who can tell a compelling story to your customers.

But on the other hand, case studies can be notoriously difficult to get approved. The best feature quotes and insights from the customers themselves. At the very least, all public-facing case studies require the client to sign off the wording and consent to publication.

This can be an issue if clients want to preserve their confidentiality or simply don’t have the time or inclination to attend an interview or sign off assets. It’s important, therefore, to make sure you check the feasibility of a particular case study before starting the project.

Benefits:

• Advocacy from existing customers can be a powerful tool in persuading prospects to convert;
• Allows you to discuss a specific problem you did solve, rather than general problems you could;
• Case studies are generally quite product and solution-specific, which is good for leads who are close to conversion.

A Better Way to Deliver MSP Services

Effective MSP marketing can make a huge difference to the success of your company. But it’s not going to make a lot of difference if you can’t offer a great service in the first place. While there are many factors that might influence this (including, of course, your own expertise), one of the most significant is the technology you’re using to manage and monitor your IT environment.

As an MSP, the remote monitoring and management software you choose is the cornerstone of your IT services. Ultimately, it’s what allows you to do business. But there are a whole range of choices on the market, each with its own niche and specialism.

While there are plenty of great choices available, most are designed to do one thing very well – whether that’s remote monitoring, vulnerability management, or something else. This means MSPs often use multiple siloed platforms for different clients – making life more difficult for their teams and customers.

But with Heimdal®, it doesn’t have to be like this. The product acts like a one-stop shop for all your remote management and support needs. This includes:

• Network security;
• Endpoint security;
• Vulnerability management;
• Privileged access management;
• Email and collaboration security;
• Threat hunting;
• Unified endpoint management.

Ready to find out more about Heimdal®? Check out our unified security platform.

Join Our Partner Program: Partner NEXUS

And moreover, Heimdal®’s Partner NEXUS program is now live and you can join in!

NEXUS (Network of Excellence, Unity, and Safeguarding) is a global initiative tailored for MSPs, MSSPs, distributors and resellers that aims at improving customer security and expanding business opportunities.

Why to join in? As an MSP, MSSP, distributor or reseller, you gain access to a comprehensive cybersecurity kit, user-friendly platform that simplifies security management, and extensive training and support for you to focus on growth and turn the tide against cyberattacks. Moreover, you get the best in cybersecurity:

• The most extensive XDR suite in the market.
• Unified management for simplified control.
• Next-level threat intelligence.
• Reliable and efficient cloud-native architecture.
• Innovative telemetry and responsive capabilities.
• Managed SOC services with exceptional support.

MSP Marketing FAQs:

Should I use outsource MSP marketing?

Many MSPs choose to outsource their MSP marketing via agencies or freelancers. This is because they generally don’t have extensive marketing expertise in-house and don’t have the time themselves to dedicate to a full strategy. This is a popular strategy but not essential – and organizations should choose the right approach for their business.

What is an MSP go-to-market strategy?

A go-to-market strategy essentially refers to your MSP marketing plan. There’s no single correct way of doing this – and the right approach will vary between different organizations. Some of the most popular techniques include SEO, pay-per-click advertising, website marketing, social media, and more.

What does MSP stand for?

MSP stands for managed services provider. These organizations offer a range of outsourced IT monitoring and support services, including network, application, infrastructure and security, and much more. Companies of all shapes and sizes engage MSPs as a more flexible and cost-efficient alternative to building their own internal IT teams.

Cristian Neagu

CONTENT EDITOR

Cristian is a Content Editor & Creator at Heimdal®, where he developed a deep understanding of the digital threat landscape. His style resonates with both technical and non-technical readers, proof being in his skill of communicating cybersecurity norms effectively, in an easy-to-understand manner.