8 Tips To Create MSP Content Your Audience Will Want To Read

Are you writing content, as a box to check off or treating it as a vanity project? In reality your content is the main generator of leads for your MSP. Here are eight ways to turn your content from fluff to profit for your MSP.

Content is king. While many MSPs have grown to understand this, they often don't know how to create content that converts. If you've been struggling to make content that breaks through the noise and gains attention, here are eight tips to create more compelling content.

Establish What You Are Trying to Accomplish With Your Content

All marketing needs a goal before you even start the process. This goal can be name recognition, sales, or traffic to your MSP website. Content is the primary tool Google uses to rank your website for the foreseeable future. You need to focus on making the most of your content. 

When composing your content, you need to decide what goal you're trying to achieve because different goals require different types of content. How you develop your brand (generating name recognition) will differ from how you write to drive traffic to your site or make a sale. 

Learn From Your Competitor's Content 

While it may seem counterintuitive, your competitors can be a great resource in understanding what type of information customers are interested in. For example, if your competitors are writing about and ranking for cybersecurity, that could indicate what businesses in your location are concerned about. Conversely, you can take this opportunity to fill an underserved service area your competitors may be ignoring allowing you to gain market share.

It would help if you also spent the time to learn what issues are affecting local businesses. Local news, industry publications, and word-of-mouth are all useful resources to seek out this information…and to spread the word that you’re available to help.

Conduct Keyword Research

One mistake many MSPs make is assuming they know what search terms potential leads are searching for. The reality is that most business owners don't know what services they need to solve their problems. They don't even know what an MSP is, let alone how you can help their business. They know they are having trouble with their technology and are looking for a solution. 

There are a few methods to find potential keywords: There are many free SEO tools and Google's trends. However, the reality is managed services are a niche market, and you won't find much data to pull from. One thing to consider when working with a marketing partner is whether or not they understand your business and can provide you with the foundation to begin marketing your MSP.

For example, do they have MSP-specific content to get you started if they are designing your MSP website? Can they provide you with a list of MSP-focused keywords to generate content with? Remember, Google's priority is providing users with valuable information, and unless your content can solve their problems, Google will not show your website to them.

Use Personas To Understand Your Audience

The most significant difficulty in creating content is understanding your audience's interest. While keyword research can help give you a starting point, you need to pinpoint what information your audience is looking for when developing your content.

Many MSPs misunderstand what drives a lead to contact them because they approach the process as the person making the sale, not the one searching for solutions to their problem. The best way to understand what content your customers are interested in is to put yourself in their shoes.

One way to determine what content will resonate with your audience is by developing personas for each type of lead you're interested in cultivating. For example, an office manager interested in reducing spam will search for something different than an IT director interested in migrating their physical servers to the cloud.

By using personas to put yourself in the shoes of the customers you're interested in attracting, you can better communicate with them in a language they can understand. Since you are speaking with them in a way they are comfortable with and understand, you have a better chance of creating the type of content that converts.

You Content Should Align With Your Marketing Goals

It's understandable to feel intimidated when it comes to creating marketing content. After all, your bottom line may depend upon it. Fortunately, there's no reason to be intimidated, because you're the best resource to be discussing your business. Remember, you're not being tasked with writing the next great American novel. Your goal is to connect with your audience and provide informative information about your services as an MSP.

While most people focus on blogging, content consists of more than blogs. Content can include videos, case studies, and white papers, anything which offers searchers the information they are looking for is content. What's most important is the format that you're most comfortable utilizing and have access to. Finally, if you're not confident in your writing abilities, you can always find a content creator to help you.

Promote Your Content Rigorously on Social Media

Social media is the absolute best tool you can employ to engage with your audience due to its ability for near-instantaneous communication. While it is a best practice to develop a social media presence, you shouldn't treat it as another box to check off. Depending on your brand, content, and marketing goals, some social media may be a better fit than others.

Instead of hitting the post button and automatically sending your content to all social media platforms, take a moment to determine where your audience is. If most of them are on Facebook as opposed to Twitter, then you should take the time to customize your post to take advantage of Facebook's platform, as opposed to posting a generic post. That being said, don’t skimp out on a platform just because you have a smaller follower count there. That’s the reason why you have a smaller follower count there in the first place.

Finally, it would help if you made an effort to customize and localize your social media posts by referencing current events which affect your location. Take this opportunity to create polls and surveys and develop relationships with local businesses, which can help increase your reach.

Measure Results

Marketing your MSP doesn't have to be hit or miss or rely on your gut. By taking advantage of your data, you can better understand which content is resonating with your audience. Data collection doesn't have to use expensive SEO tools. Your Google Analytics and Search Console provide insights into how visitors navigate your website at no cost to you. When you understand which pages potential leads visit, how long they stay on the site, and where they go on your site, you can better provide the content you know they are interested in.

Be Patient; Marketing Takes Time

Most importantly, marketing your MSP takes time. Whether using traditional methods such as print, or modern methods such as digital marketing, it takes time to gain traction. One of the most significant issues MSPs face when marketing their services is Impatience.

This impatience is understandable; most MSPs don't start marketing until they are close to losing their livelihood, increasing the pressure they face to generate leads. This pressure results in frequently discontinuing their marketing too soon, as they switch from different things. As a result, stopping their marketing creates the mistaken belief that SEO doesn't work for MSPs.

How long should you wait before reconsidering your MSP marketing strategy? We recommend three to six months, provided you are consistent during that time. Part of the reason for this timetable is that it takes Google time to crawl your site, analyze your content and determine where to place your website as a search result. Many businesses don't understand that when it comes to search, their website doesn't exist in a vacuum. Google compares your content to that of your competitors to decide where to place yours on the search results page. With this in mind, it should be understandable why getting your website top of mind can take some time. 

Is Your MSP Marketing Using Content To Its Full Potential?

Successful content marketing requires more than writing a blog and hoping that Google indexes it and a potential lead finds it. Moreover, the older practice of jamming keywords into pages without consideration of content or context is no longer a viable option. Your content needs to provide your audience with the information they are searching for.

Google frowns upon keyword "stuffing," the practice of placing keywords anywhere and everywhere on your website without consideration of content or context. Moreover, Google no longer uses keywords in meta-data as a ranking factor. If you're still using these practices, it's time to reconsider how you use keywords.

If your content isn't driving traffic back to your site, you need to evaluate the quality of your content and whether or not it is resonating with your audience. We’re one of the few marketing agencies that understand what it takes to market MSP services because we're an MSP.

Are you struggling to get your MSP website started? Our Ultimate MSP Website comes with curated MSP-focused content designed to get you up and running as quickly as possible. Call 888-546-4384 today to schedule an appointment, and take your first steps towards generating the leads your business needs to grow.