MSP? Here's How to Improve Your Marketing Efforts

By Datto Guest Blog 2

In the midst of building a business, it can be easy to ignore one of the most important factors that will make money: marketing. In our recent Datto partner podcast, Robin Robins, IT marketing and sales expert, offered her go-to sales and marketing practices for MSPs looking to grow their business. Today, i’ll cover one of the many takeaways.

Before we explore the strategies that do work for MSPS, let’s examine what doesn’t work. When does marketing fail? Robins notes that many CEOs of IT companies are technicians at heart, not marketers or salespeople. They’d rather run the operational side of the business and hire someone else to handle the sales and marketing. It’s just not in their DNA. This is a very common and huge downfall for a company looking to grow. According to Robins, if you are serious about business growth, you have to be serious about marketing. You’ve got to be willing and able to sell like a pro.

When else does marketing fail? When MSPs are “dabbling” in a variety of different strategies. This can become a waste of time and money, with little to show for it in the end. You won’t be gaining any more knowledge or revenue unless you are able to focus and immerse yourself in a single, proper marketing tactic. Pick one approach and stand behind it.

For example, if implementing a direct-mail campaign, opt for sending a thorough letter instead of a cobbled-together piece in a postcard format. Take the time to research successful direct mail tactics. Learn everything you can about efficacious sales copy. Learn everything you can about your target audience. Segment, segment, segment. After you’ve launched the campaign, ensure it’s success with the proper follow-up calls and/or sequential direct mail. In short, ensure you’re not violating the rules of direct-response marketing. Make an investment in your education, not only by reading the occasional book or attending a webinar, but by understanding a practice at its core. You must become a serious student of sales and marketing in order for your company to grow. It is the route of all successful businesses.

MSPs who continue to focus the majority of their work efforts inward on things like operations, process and procedures are stunting the growth of their business. Instead, MSPs should be spending 20 percent of their time on this inward work and 80 percent of their time on market-facing efforts–a.k.a. marketing and sales.

If you don’t understand good marketing and sales, how are you going to hire a marketing manager to help you? How are you going to hire good salespeople if you don’t even know how to sell yourself? It comes back to the proper education and investing in yourself as well as your company.

Learn more of Robin’s marketing principles, as well as best practices and tips for MSPs who are still new to the channel, by listening to the full Podcast here. Love this kind of content? Subscribe to the Datto Partner Podcast today. Hear directly from the Datto team on what’s new, what’s important and what’s next–in the world of backup, recovery, business continuity, cloud, data protection, MSP best practices and, of course, Datto.

Rob Rae is VP of Business Development at Datto. Guest blogs such as this one are published monthly and are part of MSPmentor’s annual platinum sponsorship.