An Interview with Tonya Cardinali
Managed and other IT services providers who want to differentiate themselves from an increasingly crowded field need to find new ways to engage and entice prospective buyers. For MSPs looking to up their marketing game, Liongard is here to help. We’ve got an amazing team of marketing experts in-house with decades of experience they love sharing with MSPs to help them grow. We’ve put together a special 8-part Marketing Series to help you navigate MSP marketing from soup to nuts. Today’s focus will be on digital marketing, from getting started to more advanced tips, with our Digital Marketing Manager, Tonya Cardinali, who brings more than 15 years of digital marketing experience.
What is digital marketing?
Your digital presence encompasses a wide variety of things, pretty much any place people can find you online from your website to social and search results. It’s meeting your customers where they are so you can present your products and services to the people who actually want to buy them. A good example of this would be search results. When people ask Google or another search engine a question about finding the right MSP, you want your website or your social profiles to show up. The way to do this is by either having search engine-friendly content or by paying for advertisements at the top of search pages. Both of these are examples of digital marketing. Basically, digital marketing is utilizing the internet and connected devices like your phone and laptop to reach your ideal customers.
Why is it so important for MSPs to do digital marketing?
There are a few reasons why digital marketing is so important, especially now. First, there’s a lot of competition, especially with the transition to remote and hybrid workplaces. So, if you’re just making phone calls or sending emails, you’re missing out on another channel to reach your audience and another chance to get a new lead. The other thing is, everyone is online today. Everyone has a phone that they’re using to search for products and services, and again, you want to meet your prospective customers where they spend time and online is a great way to do that. There’s also a credibility factor to think about. If a prospect maybe hears about your MSP through word of mouth, the first thing they’re going to do is look for you online to make sure your company looks legitimate before they reach out or request a meeting.
What should go on a website?
Your website should contain information about your MSP that educates and informs prospects about your services so they can make an informed decision. You can start small with a few pages about your services, your contact information, contact forms are also helpful. Once you have your core pages and information set, you can start adding content like a blog, that should address topics your customers might want to see, maybe topics like security or working remote. You can also write up checklists and short tip sheets or guides, which are very click-friendly, to get traffic to your site. This will help get your content online and indexed with search engines, which will increase your visibility to your prospects, and that’s the whole goal behind digital marketing.
How can MSPs get started with digital marketing?
The first thing you want to do is have your contact information online. Even if you don’t have a website right now, you need to have a way for people to find you and reach out to you. You can go on Google or Bing, for example, and claim your business profile page that can list your contact details, services and other information about your company. Also, you can create profiles on review sites so that customers can review your services, and this gives you another place where people can find you. The next thing I would say is social media. Social pages are free to create, so go out and claim or create all of your social media pages, make sure you include a description of your company and services, and then start posting! One thing to remember is that consistency is key across all of your channels; not only for Google rankings but also for the end customers’ understanding of your business. These things don’t take a lot of time or effort to do, but they can have a big impact and, best of all, these are all things MSPs can do for free that don’t take a ton of marketing know-how.
What can MSPs do to enhance their current or established marketing efforts?
Pump up the volume! Increase your activity on social media and with your blog. Another thing you can explore is video. Get a YouTube or other video page. So many more buyers are interacting with videos as part of the purchase cycle these days that it’s a no-brainer for MSPs that have the resources. Maybe you can get a current customer to do a video testimonial, or sit down with your marketing team if you have one and do an interview about cybersecurity and tips for working from home. Videos increase your reach and can be re-used in emails, on the website and in other marketing campaigns.
Step up your game with Liongard
So what happens when your digital marketing efforts start paying off and leads start coming in? Liongard has your back when it comes to pre-sales assessments with data that can help you accurately price jobs and increase deal size. Want to see how we can transform your sales process? Schedule a personalized demo today.