When it comes to marketing, many MSPs…. don’t. Or at least not very well, not as much as they want or not enough to be effective.
ConnectWise surveyed 1,000 MSPs about their marketing and the results revealed some interesting stats:
- - 58% have zero or limited marketing experience
- - 42% spend less than $10,000 annually on marketing
- - 20% are fairly or completely confident that their marketing efforts deliver results
- - 49% plan to invest more in marketing in the next 12 months
And yet, there’s so much opportunity for MSPs to position themselves as trusted providers and showcase their expertise and ability to deliver tailored solutions, said Angus Robertson, CMO at ConnectWise and GTIA Member Champion.
“In other words, MSPs have limited resources and experience for marketing, low budgets, a lack of understanding on how to be effective—and they want help,” Robertson said at an IT Nation Connect session.
Many MSPs rely on low-cost marketing tactics such as referrals and SEO, and only 41% have a referral program in place. “But for those that have them, half their business comes from referral programs, so that can be really effective,” Robertson said.
Robertson noted that a “KISS” (“Keep it simple, stupid”) approach can help MSPs find success. For example, just keeping customers satisfied through the sales process can pay long-term dividends. “What I’ve found is if they have a really good experience with your support and services team, that will stick in their mind, even when people leave the organization,” he said.
Marketing on a Lean Budget
Of course, even MSPs that want to invest more in marketing feel they can’t or don’t, because of financial, bandwidth or other reasons.
According to Service Leadership, a best-in-class marketing budget for MSPs is 1.8% of revenue, but it probably should be about 6%, Robertson said. “It used to be 8% to 12% of revenue and I was at a VC-backed company that spent 15%,” he said.
The goal is to find low-cost methods to use referrals, email, SEO, events and social media to do the bulk of your marketing. And generative AI can help you build some of the content—emphasis on help because MSPs shouldn’t rely on AI to deliver market-ready material.
“The monetization of AI is not standing still but paid search and SEO still works. SEO could be very cost-effective. It’s worth continuing to support SEO to some degree and you can do it in a cost-effective way,” Robertson said.
Meanwhile, virtual events are a low-cost alternative to staging in-person meetings. “Which is better? The answer is both. You can leverage virtual into your content strategy but I’m a big fan of in-person,” Robertson said. “We’re still human, we still like to get together and listen to each other. In-person might get you less people, but a higher conversion rate.”
Social media is also an important marketing strategy to get your name in the market—and to show that you’re active, but Robertson cautioned that social media won’t work if you haven’t developed a company culture or persona that comes through in your content either.
In the survey, 20% of MSPs said they don’t have marketing metrics for success, and only the same percentage are confident that their marketing efforts work. Yet nearly half are planning to invest more in marketing in the next 12 months.
“Marketing can be challenging on a lean budget, but it can work if you plan, know your goals, know your audience and have the right content,” he said.
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