The Managed Service Providing Industry is saturated and as a MSP, you would need a solid marketing strategy in order to make sales. What this entails is having a lucid vision of the marketing you hope to provide with your services and considering the best skills that you should acquire. You would also need to figure out the best ways to win the trust of your customers. However, this is not as easy as it sounds. Most MSP marketing agents have the needed technical skills that can improve productivity.
However, in order to increase sales, they would need more than IT skills. They would need training in marketing and a strong understanding of sales and sales process. Making sales is important for, not just MSPs, every business, and to do so, marketing strategies have to be developed. This is why we have highlighted effective ways in which MSP companies can use in order to improve their marketing techniques and generally increase sales.
Focus On the Adding Value to Your Customers
MSPs generally focus on the most effective ways to reach customers. However, what should be a priority is thinking of ways to add more value to clients’ engagements. MSPs are sort of ambiguous because they can be used for a variety of tasks which includes assisting in desk duties, cloud computing, consulting services; the list is long. It would be best if MSPs decide what aspect they can be very good at. This way, they would be able to know which customers are best suited for them. This would not only help them to be more efficient, but would also up their sales as their efforts are more tailored to specific customers who are sure to be loyal.
Separate Sales and Services
It is important, as an MSP, to build a Sales Operation. This is because when sales and service operation are combined, the MSP has a lot of awkward situations and it is not easy to find the root causes of issues. Moreover, clients perceive the MSP as inadequate to handle their demanding task. MSPs that join their sales and service operation appear small. The consequence is the difficulty in transforming a lead into a customer. The basic idea here is to separate service team from sales team because this would improve the skills of each team.
Create a marketing Plan
Marketing Plans are not an important element for MSPs but for all business in general. MSPs should attempt to create awareness that would advertise their services in all possible avenues. This would consist of the following:
· Create Awareness: Make use of the following for efficient results :Press releases, Social media, White papers, Videos, Events, Webinars, Community organizations, Join social organizations.
· Generate Demand: Appointment setting, Email marketing, direct mail marketing, White paper & case study downloads, Website visitor tracking, SEO and marketing.
· Create Promotions and Incentives.
It can be difficult to implement a proper marketing strategy and improving sales processes in MSPs because technical skills are perceived to be the most important things to consider. MSPs generally just go about looking for customers vaguely. However to truly have engaged customers, Managed Service Providers must develop marketing plans and truly get involved in marketing processes. The steps listed above, if implemented properly would not only improve your sales but would also increase productivity.