7 random (but good) marketing ideas for MSPs

Here are 7 random (but good) marketing ideas you can use in your MSP.

1) Watch videos of what people are doing in your website

Install Hotjar or Lucky Orange and they will record (anonymised) videos of people using your site. Watch these videos once a week and you'll be horrified at a) how few pages most people visit, and b) how little content they consume on each page.

You're looking for trends that you can fix. For example, if few people scroll down to the bottom of the page, yet that's where your Call To Action (CTA) is, then you need to move it to the top of the page.

2) Find someone who already has the LinkedIn connections you want, and harvest them

In your city there will be an uber-networker. Someone who seems to know everyone. And their LinkedIn will reflect that.

Connect to this person on LinkedIn, look at their connections, and connect to the business owners and managers who look most interesting to you.

3) Send printed newsletters to prospects

In our digital world, physical stuff stands out by a factor of X. Printed newsletters are a great physical thing you can ship to a prospect every month or every other month. They make you stand out and help you build relationships.

They will be passed around, stuck in drawers, pinned to walls... and in three years' time when a decision maker is sick to death of the poor service she's getting from her incumbent MSP, she'll find your newsletter at the bottom of a drawer and message you.

PS I supply a high 4 page printed monthly newsletter to my MSP Marketing Edge members.

4) Target a vertical or niche

The power of a vertical can be summarised in three beautiful words: Pure marketing focus.

When you market to a specific niche, you can typically reach more people and have more influence, with less effort.

You’ll be targeting a small number of people with a message that seems more relevant to them (and relevance increases results).

The vast majority of MSPs with a vertical run it alongside their general business. This is highly recommended, as it allows you to dip your toe into the vertical and see if it works for you. Consider setting up a separate website for your vertical. A page on your website is OK, but an entire website really sends a message of perceived specialism.

The “all in” method is to marry your market, and stop looking for new general business. This is brave, and should only be attempted when you know 100% that you have a good vertical, and they will buy from you.

5) Gamify sales calls with the paperclip method

Get 2 drinking glasses. Put a number of paperclips into one glass that represents the number of calls you have to make. Every time you dial the number, move a paperclip into the other glass. Keep going until all of the paperclips are in the other glass, then stop. And do a different activity.

This simple game triggers off a number of powerful psychological factors:

You can see progress is being made

Once you’ve started, your brain will want you to finish

Filling the other glass will give your brain a nice burst of dopamine, the reward chemical

6) Get some MDF

MDF – also known as Marketing Development Funds, or co-op marketing – is amazing.

With a caveats, it’s essentially free marketing money for you. And there’s millions and millions of it out there; often going unclaimed.

How do you access it? Talk to all of your vendors. Tell them you are looking at new marketing initiatives, and ask if they have MDF available.

7) Hire a virtual assistant to free you from small marketing tasks

Virtual assistants (VAs) are amazing. In the spirit of you should only do, what only you can do they represent an easy way to get low level jobs done (and done well), so you can focus on the difficult things.

Most VAs work on an hourly basis, flexibly, from home. It’s important to find someone you get on well with. And look after them as well as any member of your team (I have monthly Zoom 121s with my VAs and send them gifts in the post whenever I do the same for my core team).