MSP Marketing: Are you Making Excuses?

If you are a technical IT professional running an MSP business, it’s more than likely that marketing isn’t your strong point.

Perhaps the thought of it fills you with dread?

After all, you probably would have gone into the marketing industry rather than into computers if the former appealed to you!

 

Some Common Excuses for Not Doing MSP Marketing

If the above describes you well, you probably make all kinds of excuses to justify the fact that you don’t make a consistent effort to market your MSP business and keep it growing - excuses like these:

• We’re just too busy dealing with existing clients right now.
• We already have a strong client base.
• We’re already generating good profits.
• New clients come to us all the time due to good referrals.
• We don’t have the budget for a marketing drive right now.

While you may be quite capable of rationalizing these excuses in your head, you must be honest with yourself – they are all just excuses, and they are all nonsense.

If you want your business to go from strength to strength, marketing isn’t optional. Even if your MSP business is successful, clients will come and go. You could, for example, lose your largest, most lucrative client tomorrow if their own success causes them to sell out to a larger firm with its own internal IT department.

So, to give you the push you require to give your company the marketing effort it deserves, we’re going to destroy each of the above excuses one at a time:

“We’re just too busy dealing with existing clients right now.”

If you are inundated with client work, then that should mean there’s plenty of money coming in – so hire a marketing person or outsource some sales tasks. Meanwhile, dedicate some time to working out how you’re going to scale up your business when it gets busier still. Surely you didn’t start your own business in order to cap its success at a certain level?

“We already have a strong client base.”

As discussed above, any one of those clients could quickly become an ex-client through no fault of your own. In fact, the more successful your clients, the more likely they are to be acquired by other companies who may not need your MSP’s services. Marketing is about next year just as much as it’s about today.

“We’re already generating good profits.”

Perhaps, but surely you’d like to generate more?

“New clients come to us all the time due to good referrals.”

Well, that’s great, and means you have a good reputation, and probably some fabulous testimonials you can use to further your marketing efforts. If you’re generating new business without a steady level of marketing, just think what you could achieve if you put more effort in?

“We don’t have the budget for a marketing drive right now.”

If you don’t have money in the business, this makes it quite clear that you desperately need to do some marketing in order to find new clients who will improve your cash flow. And the good news is that, nowadays, marketing doesn’t need a big budget. Social media, engagement marketing and outsourced sales people (who only charge for results) are all options open to you right now.

Conclusion

All the above probably comes across as a little harsh, but if you’re making excuses related to marketing, you do need a gentle kick. For many SME IT firms, marketing is the task that’s always pushed to the bottom of the pile, but it needs to form a central part of your day-to-day operations. So stop making excuses.

Think You're Making Marketing Excuses Without Realizing It?

Be sure to catch our webinar The Five Secret Roadblocks Keeping You From Your Marketing Goals! 

Listen today!