Finding the right MSP marketing agency is much harder than some people might think. Before starting the hiring process, you need to formulate your goals and decide on the best course of action. After that, you need to learn more about the available options and review them one by one.
To make matters worse, many MSP marketing agencies have shady policies or might use tactics that go against your brand. For example, they might utilize a risky link-building process or partner up with influencers who have a bad reputation. Because of that, you need to have a good understanding of who you’re working with before signing a contract.
In this article, we’ll share some tricks that will help you find the right digital marketing agency for your software brand. We’ll also analyze a few popular marketing services and break down their pros and cons.
Marketing Process for MSPs
Like any other business, managed service providers are heavily affected by their marketing and sales process. The ability to acquire new software customers usually makes a difference between a successful and an unsuccessful brand. In the end, even if you’re great at your job, you still need to attract people through popular marketing channels.
However, simply investing in promotional activities doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll achieve your goals. You should have a well-established procedure to gain the most from your marketing efforts. Although you can tinker with all sorts of tactics, here’s what the most optimal marketing plan looks like:
- Analyze your market by going through the top-ranking MSP blogs
- Hire a marketing agency to perform competitive analysis
- Check out competitors’ links, PR tactics, and blog content, and read testimonials
- Prioritize SEO as the best way of attracting potential clients
- Analyze the most relevant keywords in your niche
- Create content and promote it online
In most cases, the marketing for MSPs revolves around optimizing blog content for search engines. While social media and paid advertising can also provide some benefits, they simply don’t scale as efficiently as MSP SEO.
How Do I Find a Marketing Agency for My MSP?
To get the most out of your lead generation, you need to hire a full-service marketing agency that understands your needs and has the necessary resources to help you out. Unfortunately, managed services providers usually don’t know how to distinguish a good from a bad agency. So, to help you out, we’ve created a list of things you should focus on during the hiring process:
1. Create a SMART Framework
Before you start looking for a provider, you need to establish your objectives. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, and Time-Based. An MSP business can use the framework to formulate its operative and marketing goals, ensuring it focuses on the right processes.
Basically, you need to cover each of these points to generate leads at a high rate. For example, if you disregard timeframes, you won’t make the necessary impact. Similarly, if your goals can’t be measured, you’ll be flying blind during your MSP marketing campaign.
2. Hire Veteran Agencies
We always suggest you hire a marketing agency that has been working for more than a decade, such as MiroMind. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that a young marketing agency won’t produce good results. It just means they might need more time and money to reach that point.
You should also prioritize marketers who invest in continuous learning. The marketing tactics and channels change all the time, introducing new algorithms and policies. If you want to achieve noticeable results, you need to find someone who knows how to use the newest marketing tools and is acquainted with the latest promotional tactics.
3. Assess Their Professionalism
A managed service provider should start assessing a marketing agency from the first contact. They need to pay attention to small details, such as, how they’re responding to phone calls, whether they’re available all the time, what kind of marketing materials they use, whether they have a functional website, etc.
You have to remember that a good marketing agency should always be highly responsive and responsible. They need to be transparent regarding their policies and to provide regular updates. Good marketers are professionals in every sense of the word, ensuring their clients get the maximum value from marketing campaigns.
4. Check Their Own Marketing
When analyzing a marketing agency, many MSPs forget to cover the basics. In other words, they don’t check the provider’s own promotional policies and their impact.
So, if you want to have a better understanding of how a brand can help you out, you need to start by checking their promotional channels. Analyze the number of organic visits they get on their site as well as the number of followers on social media. You should also check their link-building efforts and content marketing.
That way, you will be able to determine whether or not they can help your MSP website.
5. Interview Past Clients
Hiring an MSP marketing agency is similar to any other hiring process. You need to analyze their past track record and establish how good (or bad) they are at their job. However, as most of this data can be faked, we suggest you contact their past and existing clients and ask them for assistance.
Interview other businesses and ask them if they can provide some insights into the brand’s performance. In many cases, their first reaction can tell you a lot about the MSP marketing agency. If they’re reluctant to give any data, this is a clear indication that the provider did an excellent job. However, if the client badmouths the marketing agency, they probably did a lousy job.
6. Evaluate Industry Expertise
When looking for marketing agencies, you should always focus on providers who specialize in the MSP industry. These brands are well acquainted with the biggest brands, and they’ve probably had a chance to work with most of them. So, when you hire one such agency, you can jumpstart your marketing as they already have an established workflow and contacts.
MSP specialists usually generate leads at a much faster pace. They can easily optimize your site as they won’t have any trouble getting links from other businesses. They also know a lot about the topic, which will come in handy when writing blog posts. Furthermore, specialized providers can also convert new customers at a higher rate, unlike brands that are working in the MSP industry for the first time.
7. Find a Custom Provider
Not only should marketing agencies create a process focused on the MSP industry, but they should also create a campaign tailor-made for your brand. A provider should assess your needs and suggest a plan of action. They need to create a holistic SEO process that will create a basis for long-term growth.
First off, they need to create a website that will reflect your brand’s mission and values. They need to prioritize marketing materials that are best-suited for your target audience and to reach them through relevant channels. Even the link-building process should be in line with MSP company’s branding policies.
Where to Find an MSP Marketing Agency?
There are several ways to get in touch with an MSP marketing provider:
Personal Contacts
Word-of-mouth marketing is as potent today as it ever was. Most people rely on their friends, family, and colleagues for product and service recommendations. The same is true for marketing agencies.
Finding a provider through your contacts ensures that the service will be top-notch. As the agency comes recommended, they’re less likely to scam you or provide subpar service. These types of partnerships are usually characterized by higher transparency and better reporting.
Search Engines
As mentioned, SEO and Google are extremely powerful channels not only for MSPs but also for MSP marketing providers. The biggest names in this industry rely on search engines to generate leads for their business and increase brand awareness.
The best thing about ranking on top of Google is that it builds authority. People who see your link on top of SERPs will instantly presume that you’re one of the biggest providers in the niche, which gives you an enormous headstart.
Online Directories
If you’re looking for MSP agencies, it wouldn’t hurt to check several online directories. Adding a brand to these directories is a common practice for marketers, as it boosts their SEO efforts and increases visibility. In fact, you should be very suspicious if your marketing agency of choice isn’t listed on some of the top directories.
“Best Of” Articles
Lastly, we suggest you go through “Best Of” articles on the web. These are blog posts mentioning the top-performing providers within the industry, highlighting their pros and cons. Like with directories, you should be worried if your chosen agency can’t be found in any of these articles.
The fantastic thing about “Best Of” articles is that they give you a lot of insights about MSP providers. They don’t necessarily talk about prices, but they break down their services and results. As such, they can serve as a basis for your research.
Last Thoughts
By following the tips and tricks in this article, you won’t have any trouble finding an excellent marketing provider for your MSP brand. We suggest you take your time and analyze all the options on the market. Focus on agencies that have been in the business for a while and have a good track record.