In the deep and dark halls found in many IT Professional and MSP conferences around the country, where few roam, discussions occur around MSP marketing, social media and other forms of business marketing. Many MSPs are still wondering if marketing is for them and if it actually works.
Since I focus primarily on MSP Online Marketing, one of the topics often discussed is social media marketing. Does it work for your MSP business?
The answer from many of you is NO. But, as we dig deeper to find out why, what gets unearthed is that none of your marketing actually does work.
Not because there is no audience for it, because no time, commitment or focus show up in your Outlook calendar for marketing activities. Not for all but for a bunch of MSPs out there. You invest your hard-earned dollars in a replicated website (maybe the same website as your biggest competitor) and still wonder why you are not getting any opportunities?
The best of breed MSPs understand that uniqueness and investing in marketing is what separates them from the crowd. I remember when Ryan Morris harped on marketing at the HTG 2009 summit, Ryan stated “all MSPs must become marketing companies”. What he said was a great reminder for me and perhaps wake-up call for some of the MSPs in the room that day.
Marketing is crucial and it is your business “IV”. The best of breed MSPs get it, they understand how important a complete marketing strategy and to some degree social media marketing really is.
Success with social media and ANY marketing takes time and effort. Perhaps a tremendous amount of blood, sweat and tears as well. Plus, you need to schedule time for marketing activities. Some experts say two-hours per day. I agree with this allotment, see my video below.
Your marketing success is directly tied to the amount of effort you put in engaging with your target or niche market.
You can’t expect to put up a website, have some feeds pour into a make shift blog and get results from your online marketing. It doesn’t work that way.
Our team at Ulistic released a video based on a conversation I had one day with Chris Brogan, a friend and a mentor of mine in the online marketing community. Hope you enjoy it.
If you have questions on social media, online marketing or just MSP marketing in general. Call me at 403.604.9464 – no pressure and no obligation….just a chat!
Stuart Crawford specializes in working with Managed Service Providers, IT Professionals and Value Added Resellers to achieve great things through effective online marketing strategies that work.
