Documenting Content Can Strengthen Your Managed Services Marketing Outreach Strategy

Managed services marketing will be more effective with statistically-optimized tactics based on real numbers. Documentation is a key means of helping your business determine what to watch and what to augment.  

Advantages of Documentation  

Documenting your content strategy has a lot of different advantages. It’s one of many reasons top-tier SEO groups which provide MSP businesses with marketing solutions advise this practice. Several notable advantages include: 

Better Internal Organization 

Managed services marketing will be more organized internally through documentation. You can keep metrics pertaining to frequency of content creation, distribution, and its overall effectiveness in varying markets. You can determine which content streams produce the most positive results and increase the “surface area” of that content distribution by creating more.  

Streamlined Internal Collaboration 

Sales, marketing, customer service, and on-site tech support often function as separate departments inside an MSP. Altogether, this increases operational cost over time through miscommunication and associated fallout. A better way to do things is through alignment of departments toward a common goal. 

This is something easier to conceive than achieve, but with proper documentation, you’ll be able to identify trends in between departments. What’s going wrong can be stopped and you can monitor the results of augmented operational strategy going forward.  

Prevention of Ineffective Outreach Tactics 

Some outreach tactics just don’t do anything for your MSP; essentially, you’re throwing money at the wind. Documentation reveals which content outreach strategies produce fruit and which ones are ultimately a dead end. Sometimes a technique worked very good for a few years then quit entirely, sometimes it never worked at all. Documentation reveals the truth of these things.  

Optimizing Conversion Rates Through Effective Documentation 

Managed services marketing will be more effective through documentation. Done properly, this prevents ineffective outreach, streamlines internal collaboration, and ultimately yields better overall operations. The more organized your content outreach is, the more likely it is to resonate with your clients.  

Fully Utilizing the Digital Tools Available to You

Your managed services marketing will certainly be more effective should it make full use of available tools. Oftentimes, IT marketers lean on either email or social media but don’t properly fulfill the potentiality for either. However, both can be complementary, working to “charge” each other up in terms of outreach and impact.

Leveraging Social Media and Email Toward Increased Conversion

There are best practices which can help you see more impact for less expense in terms of outreach. SEO groups that have an emphasis on clients of the MSP variety can be quite helpful here. They will likely endorse tactics such as:

• Email and social media are symbiotically distinct
• Put social media in emails and email addresses on social media
• Leverage social media profiles toward the creation of valid email lists

Email and Social Media are Symbiotically Distinct

Managed services marketing needs to respect that email and social media feed into one another. On whales, there are fish that eat microorganisms which would otherwise turn into health-threatening factors leaching off the whale.

The little fish eat these organisms, and so keep the whale healthy. It’s a win-win for both. Email and social media are quite similar. Through email, you can get more serious interaction with prospective clientele, and through social media, you can obtain contact information.

Put Social Media in Emails and Email Addresses on Social Media

When you send an email, be it an automated message manifested through CRM software or part of an ongoing conversation thread, include social media links in your closing salutation. For social media, put your email on your social media profile.

Leverage Social Media Profiles Toward the Creation of Valid Email Lists

You can endorse your MSP through social media by offering incentives or discounts for those who provide you their email address. Put your email front-and-center on social media and invite clients to give you theirs through incentive.

Maximizing Email and Social Media

Managed services marketing which creates email lists through social media, endorses social media through emails (and vice versa), and fosters symbiosis between these digital communication avenues should see increased positive impact on clientele in terms of conversion.

Your managed services marketing strategy must first and foremost resonate with target markets. To do that, you’re going to want to give everyone who interfaces with your outreach materials the best customer experience (CX) possible. 

Accordingly, you need to know what present experiences are like, how to measure them, and how to produce better experiences through utilization of the data deriving from those measurements. Key performance indicators (KPIs) must be identified and put to work optimizing the effectiveness of your managed services marketing.  

How to Properly Balance KPIs Through CX 

You should examine three primary KPIs to help determine where CX needs work: 

• Net Customer Value Growth (NCVG)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Existing Customer Referral

NCVG basically refers to how many clients your marketing campaign gains you, against how many clients you use in a given marketing period. Gains should outpace losses in an ideal scenario. The time-frame will often differ per MSP, but generally, you’re going to experience longer sales cycle periods than other businesses. Working with SEO groups that make MSPs their core clientele can be key in helping you get an idea where an appropriately balanced NCVG ratio might be.  

Such SEO groups can also help you with NPS. Basically, this is how many people would recommend your MSP’s services to their friends or colleagues based on the level of effectiveness you’ve brought to the table. How effective you are will depend on how they perceive you, so you’ll want to keep this in mind. Sometimes, perceptions aren’t accurate. To get NPS then, you should send out surveys and subtract the detractors. You should see an increasing trend over time. 

Lastly, the level of referrals existing clients give to your business is a good indicator of CX. When the customer referral KPI goes up, it means you’re doing something right. When it sags, something needs to be fixed.  

Developing Better Outreach Through Proper Metrics 

A managed services marketing strategy which incorporates KPIs pertaining to CX can more efficiently optimize outreach. NCVG, NPS, and existing client referral are excellent KPIs worth considering as you go about expanding CX. 

You need to co-opt subconscious and archetypical aspects of the human psyche into managed services marketing for increased ROI in advertisement. There are right and wrong ways to do this.

Effective Ways to Co-Opt the Subconscious 

Don’t use fear tactics, don’t lie, don’t entice, don’t play into negative personality traits of human beings. Rather, play to the core needs people may not even realize drive them. Consider these tactics:

Provide Certainty of Outcome

Your managed services marketing campaign needs to answer the problem of a prospective client’s pain points with objective, certain outcomes that solve the problem in a straightforward way, and even demonstrate prospective cost-reduction or productivity enhancement.

People seek to be certain, and the world isn’t. When you can provide a feeling of certainty, this is subconsciously comforting, and apt to facilitate conversion.

Communicate Belonging to Prospects

Make your prospective clients feel as though your products or services make them part of a venerated group. You can do this by showing reviews of top-tier clients in whose social circle a prospective client may want to be.

Find ways of making clients feel like they’re part of an “in” crowd and that you understand where they presently are in their business. Recognize the group to which they presently belong.

Recognition, Individuality, Power, and Self-Development

Clients like to be recognized for what they face, who they are, what they need, what they’re good at, and for their intelligence. They also want to be seen individually, because each client certainly has idiosyncrasies that are unique.

Clients want to be empowered as well, and they want to feel as though what you do for them will help develop their brand. These things aren’t often consciously expressed, but they can be subconsciously co-opted into conversion.

Pacifying Subconscious Desire Expands Client Conversion

A managed services marketing strategy which recognizes clients on an individual level, empowers them toward self-development, communicates belonging, and provides certainty of outcome will effectively co-opt subconscious drives.

Managed services marketing will have varying success with varying outreach campaigns. You’ll need to have marketing solutions which spread information geared at drawing in potential clients. Value-rich content which leverages unique value propositions against valid data pertaining to the market can be effective at increasing conversion margins. But it’s not enough.

You want every tool at your disposal, and one of the most effective is word-of-mouth marketing. Basically, clients who like what you do tell colleagues, prompting them to seek you out and convert. Approximately 92 out of 100 people will trust friends who refer your business. Still, outside a few fringe scenarios, most clients aren’t automatically going to recommend you. Following are tips to help encourage them this direction:

Deliver Notable Experiences for Customers

Managed services marketing must incorporate customer experience, often abbreviated CX. If you were into making mathematical formulas, you may be able to find a numerical relationship between positive CX and referral likelihood.

Don’t irritate existing clients but do keep an eye on them to help them whenever they need you. Make the right suggestions. Check in regularly. If they make mistakes, you take the blame. Deliver astonishing CX and you’ll see clients recommend you naturally.

Design Incentivized Referral Programs 

Incentivized referral is sensible. Tesla uses this sort of referral paradigm to great success. Give clients discounts if they bring new converts— even have promotional incentive programs strategically in the year.

Monitor Content and Co-Opt Ambassadors to Your Brand

Ensure the content you produce is monitored and updated to optimal effectiveness. Find those who really love what you do and give them incentives to act as ambassadors for your brand.

Think of tech geeks who love Apple or Microsoft. Some people are downright passionate about their favorite brand. Find them and co-opt them into marketing campaigns.

Natural Referral

Managed services marketing often expands referral through co-opting brand ambassadors, optimizing content, using referral programs, and providing genuinely positive customer experiences.

Managed services marketing won’t be as effective as it could be if it only focuses on lead acquisition and conversion. Once leads are converted, additional marketing throughout their relationship with your MSP is integral. 

Over time, your MSP will grow, offering new products and services. Likewise, as your clientele transition forward, they likely experience some level of growth which naturally recommends increased technology acquisition for varying reasons. 

You need to have automated outreach, as well as personalized marketing solutions aimed at clientele strategically throughout their life cycle with your business. It’s a different marketing angle, but when you get it right, you bring legitimate value to the table, fostering loyalty. A properly-balanced life cycle marketing campaign facilitates a positive upward spiral for all involved. Additionally, it lowers costs and increases revenue.  

Increased Revenue and Lowered Costs 

Managed services marketing which manages clientele over the long-term and continues marketing toward them will increase their average value to your company. The more effectively you do this, the further out you can project total client value over the course of their journey with your business.  

A client spending $2k a month on varying tech services is spending $24k a year. In ten years, that’s $240k. But if you can sell increased services, you may double what they’re paying you on a monthly basis even as value is provided. This means the cost of marketing is outweighed by expanded ROI, meaning it represents a lower percentage of total costs spent reaching and converting clientele. 

If the first year, this hypothetical client spends $2k a month, and balanced up-sell expands that average $500 a year, in ten years you’ll more than double the lifetime value of said client.  

Efficiency and Profit 

Managed services marketing needs to balance internal selling after client conversion. Doing so properly increases revenue and decreases costs. Working with MSP-centered SEO groups can help you get the balance right. Consider existing marketing, and if you don’t already strive to market clientele after conversion, it’s integral you start. 

Managed Services Marketing Strategies to Help Expand Email Outreach Lists

Your managed services marketing campaign can do very well with an email marketing campaign. Some statistics predict that$1 of spending may yield $44 in return should the campaign be properly managed. Following are a few techniques to help you facilitate more effective email marketing outreach:

Ensure Multiple Sign-On Points Across the Web

You need to sandblast the web affecting your target demographic with sign-on points. Target pages should have them, blogs should have them, there should be subscription points on YouTube videos. Wherever you can get one, put it there. Find new ways of incorporating such sign-on points as it’s possible to. This increases the surface area of the marketing “net” you’re throwing out over the prospect “fish” you’re trying to catch. The bigger the net, the greater the haul.

Incentivize Subscription 

When new subscribers appear, reward them. Give them a sign-on bonus. Or, lure them in with a subscription-based white paper. Give them regular coupons via email or information on the tech market. Do something which provides prospects incentive to subscribe to you. Ensure existing clients likewise have some level of incentive driving them.

Balance the Messages You Send Subscribers

In your managed services marketing, you need to regularly send emails to subscribers and ensure the greatest level of personalization feasible. Working with SEO agencies that regularly serve MSPs can be key here. The thing is, inundating subscribers with emails is a great way to annoy and estrange them. Instead, send out email strategically, at times when prospects are most likely to read them. This will keep from annoying them, but ensure you aren’t forgotten.

Optimized Email Outreach

You need to balance sending messages to subscribers, provide incentives to subscription, and incorporate diverse sign-on points across the web so you can make your email marketing campaign much more successful. Consultation can additionally help you plan the most effective managed services marketing. Consider what works now and goals you’d like to reach.

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