Have You Been Putting Off Your 2021 MSP Marketing Plan?

First, 2020 was a paradigm shift, and no business, regardless of size or industry, including MSPs like yours, survived it without needing to abandon their 2020 plans. This caused most companies to adapt on the fly or risk losing their business. As we near the end of the first business quarter of 2021, you need to consider putting your MSP marketing plans into motion.

First Step: Dust Off Your Post-Pandemic MSP Marketing Plan

Now that your business has gotten settled into 2021, it's time to (re)evaluate your marketing plans. Usually, when you plan your marketing campaign for the new year, you would review the data from the previous year and determine how many goals were met.

Some marketing objectives or measurements to success for your MSP marketing to consider should include:

• Past social media campaigns.
• Website analytics including organic traffic, CTR, audience behavior
• Email open and click rates.
• Results from all of your paid media buys (PPC, radio, tv, print).
• How your content was being received, including user engagement.

Traditionally, reviewing this data would have provided the insights you need to develop your action plans for the new year. Usually, the plan would have been simple, analyze the data and do more of what worked to generate leads for your MSP and less of what didn't. While there is no silver bullet to guaranteed success, you could use the information you acquired to refine which tactics effectively generated leads for your MSP.

2020 was such an anomaly that chances are you may not be able to extrapolate meaningful results from the data you collected as would be expected. For example, if you created content focusing on how your MSP provided remote workforce support and services, you may have seen incredible growth in that area.

However, as time has progressed, most businesses may have reached a saturation point regarding their remote workforce. This means focusing so many resources into promoting it may no longer be the right course of action, despite the large number of leads it generated for your business last year. For example, ransomware attacks have become an almost daily occurrence in the news, making sense to focus on the issue to capture potential leads' attention.

One first step to starting your MSP marketing planning process would be to put yourself in the shoes of a business still facing technological uncertainty as its first-quarter draws near. By now, they should have a better idea of their issues and are seeking solutions to their problems. However, it is common for most businesses not to know which services to ask for when searching for answers to their questions. This is where a persona is valuable as it allows you to more closely focus on the services businesses are interested in.

You Need To Update Your Personas

If you developed your personas as part of your MSP's marketing strategy some time ago, it is time to review them. The business environment in which you created them has long evolved from that moment in time. If you made your personas during the first months of the pandemic, you should review them, as more than a year has passed and business needs have evolved. Priorities have changed.

During the pandemic, a business may have asked the question, "how to set up a secure network for my remote workforce"? A year later, as team members return to their offices, businesses may now ask, "How to ensure my WiFi will cover my office as I spread my team out due to social distancing?" Your MSP marketing strategy, more specifically your content, should reflect and find solutions to the issues potential customers face today and tomorrow, not yesterday.

Your personas will allow you to think not as an MSP trying to sell a service agreement but as a business that has managed to keep its technology up-and-running through 2020 and is now looking to do more than remain static. If you put yourself in their place, what issues would be of concern to you? Providing solutions to those concerns will be the basis of your marketing strategy.

Stop Putting Off Your 2021 MSP Marketing Plans

While it is understandable to be hesitant when developing a marketing plan for this year, you must have one. Yes, you may need to disregard what you learned in 2020 and create a marketing plan based on new and perhaps untested business assumptions, but that’s okay. It’s going to be trickier growing your business and attracting new customers without a plan to get your MSP in front of an audience.

The reality is most businesses are in the same boat as you are and are reevaluating their plans for this year as well. Whether it was expanding the business, introducing new products, or relocating their offices, it’s fair to assume that most plans (marketing and otherwise) were put on hold last year. However, as the new year is full-swing, now is the time to consider moving forward with some goals.

Successful businesses, including MSPs, always move forward because remaining static allows your competitors to move ahead of you. While it may seem difficult at times, there is no excuse not to market your MSP. You should be marketing your MSP during this pandemic; you should be marketing your MSP during the holidays; you need to always be marketing your MSP.

We Can Help Market Your MSP

We offer a wide range of solutions to support your MSP marketing plan. Please take a moment to review our MSP Marketing Services to understand better how we can help you. If you’re unsure if you can develop and maintain a marketing plan, let us manage your campaigns for you. Get regular, monthly management through weekly meetings with our Virtual Marketing Manager (VMM) Service.

If you’ve been in a holding pattern for the past year, now is the time to make a move. Call us today to schedule an appointment at 888-546-4384 and start driving traffic and generating the leads your business needs to succeed.