Ready to improve your MSP's marketing? Here are 2 popular marketing services compared: Pronto Marketing, and the MSP Marketing Edge
Marketing your MSP in 2023 has never been easier. There are so many services where you can find out what you should be doing, or get help doing it, or even get someone to do all of the hard work for you.
In this guide we're comparing Pronto Marketing, an MSP website and SEO specialist, with the MSP Marketing Edge, a service that gives you marketing content, tools and unlimited support
Let's be transparent: This article has been written by the team behind the MSP Marketing Edge. Our goal is to give a fully balanced view. This review is based on information available on websites and Google Reviews.
The service: Pronto Marketing
Pronto Marketing has worked with MSPs for many years. The business was set up by father and son duo Cory & Derek Brown in Seattle, back in 2008.
Now there are 100 employees in the business, and according to the career opportunities on its website at time of writing, much of its team is based in the Philippines and Thailand.
Pronto says it has created an impressive 3,840 websites for its clients. While it's known in the channel as being an MSP specialist, its website says it serves several other industries, including construction, finance, legal and medical.
It offers a wide range of full marketing services - marketing done for you. These include website design and support, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Google ads and blog writing.
The service: MSP Marketing Edge
The MSP Marketing Edge does not offer done for your marketing, but instead gives MSPs every piece of content and marketing tool they need to get their marketing done.
When you become a member, you receive everything you need to attract new clients and retain existing clients. There's also a community of 700+ non-competing MSP owners. And unlimited support from owner Paul Green and his team.
To ensure that the marketing materials never clash, the MSP Marketing Edge is only available to one MSP per area. If your area has already been locked by a competitor, you can join a waiting list.
The MSP Marketing Edge has an online portal. That's where you access new marketing content every Thursday, with an additional set of content delivered on the 10th of every month. There's also a library of evergreen marketing tools, including lead generation campaigns, a book, and an IT Services Buyer's Guide that you can brand as your own.
You also get more than 100 technology videos to enhance your website's credibility. And smart web tools such as a password checker, Have I Been Pwned email checker, and a pricing/downtime calculator.
The cost: Pronto Marketing
Unlike many full service MSP marketing agencies, Pronto does publish starting prices on its website. This is great!
Of course, asking the cost of MSP marketing is like asking the cost of managed services... the answer is "it depends"!
On its website, Pronto states that:
- Website builds start from $3,500 which includes copywriting, custom design and some SEO optimization of the site
- Ongoing SEO services start from $1,300 a month
- Google My Business starts from $300 a month
- Google Ads management starts from $500 a month.
Looking at prices without an understanding of exactly what is included in each of these services does any business a disservice. On its website, Pronto makes it easy to see what is included, get an indication of price, and talk to a consultant to get a personalized price.
The cost: MSP Marketing Edge
The MSP Marketing Edge also has clear and transparent pricing. It's a subscription business, with a fixed monthly payment. At time of writing this is just £149 + vat for UK MSPs, and US$199 for MSPs everywhere else in the world.
Every new member enjoys a 30 day free trial, and is protected by the guarantee of no contract, cancel any time.
This does seem very inexpensive for the huge amount of marketing materials and support that's included.
Until you look at the bigger picture... there are 700+ non-competing members and they all receive the same marketing materials. This makes it clear how you can get such huge value for a tiny investment each month.
What MSPs say
Both Pronto Marketing and MSP Marketing Edge have an impressive number of Google Reviews.
At time of writing, Pronto has 86 reviews with an average score of 4.8. This is their most recent review:
Meantime, MSP Marketing Edge (through its parent company Paul Green's MSP Marketing) enjoys an average score of 5.0, from 73 reviews.
Again, here's the most recent review:
About the people behind the services
Other than the name of the founders Cory & Derek Brown, there's not a lot of detail about Pronto Marketing's people on its website. A search on RocketReach shows Derek Brown is still the managing director, now apparently based in Thailand.
RocketReach estimates Pronto Marketing's revenue to be $28 million, and says: "With his extensive experience at Microsoft, Derek was continually confronted by businesses struggling to make marketing work. So, he and his son set out to create a service that helped business owners scale their website leads and make their online marketing successful".
MSP Marketing Edge was set up by Paul Green, who lives in the UK and still drives the business today. He was a journalist and radio presenter for 13 years, before starting his first business in 2005. He sold that in 2016 and jumped into the channel, founding the MSP Marketing Edge.
Paul is active on Facebook inside his MSP Marketing group, and has seen 150,000+ downloads of his MSP Marketing Podcast.
