After our judges carefully reviewed all the submissions for the MSP Marketing Masters Awards, we’re happy to announce the winners! Congratulations to:
- A Leap Ahead IT – Sacramento, California
- Cloudtech 1 – Rochester Hills, Michigan
- EnKompas Technology Solutions – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Results Technology – Lenexa, Kansas
With so many great submissions, it was a tough decision for the judges, so we’d like to give a shout out to Oxen Technology and Techvera who received Honorable Mentions, as well as to all of the other participants. We saw a lot of great entries!
Marketing doesn’t come easy for many MSPs, which is why it was so encouraging and exciting to see our Partners executing strong marketing strategies to help them stand out from their competition and grow their businesses.
The winners of the MSP Marketing Masters Awards have a few things in common; consistency, creativity, and face-to-face meetings were key to their successes. And I think that reveals some important lessons for other MSPs. Here are three things you can learn from the winners of this year’s MSP Marketing Masters:
Concentrate on consistency
To get ahead of your competition, you need to be consistent with your marketing efforts. These MSP Marketing Masters all created a plan, executed on it, and measured its effectiveness along the way. Frequent, regular marketing keeps your brand top of mind with your prospects and clients.
The winning entries all demonstrated consistency, whether they featured email blasts scheduled on a strategic basis or planning out quarterly campaign strategies. One standout was enkompas Technology Solutions. They executed a campaign that focused on a different theme each month to further educate their clients. For example, for the month of October they focused on offsite backup and security, and they conducted a detailed backup review for all of their clients.
The winners also regularly measured the effectiveness of each campaign. Not all marketing campaigns are ”home runs”. However, habitually tracking your results is a great way to be SMART, and it helps you continually adapt your strategy based on what is working and what isn’t.
Cultivate Creativity
Creativity is a key part of successful marketing, especially if you’re low on budget or don’t have a marketing team. Sometimes your message can get lost if you try to think too far out of the box, but you won’t stand out if you play it too safe. Finding the middle ground is important, and Results Technology did just that.
Results Technology’s campaign took an unconventional yet effective approach by targeting prospects on “5 Reasons You Do NOT Need Results Technology.” The team also strategically planned their marketing mix to complement the campaign. They created an email campaign, a landing page, a direct mail piece, and LinkedIn ad targeting their list of “cold” leads and “warm” leads.
Elevate events and relationship building
The MSP Marketing Masters winners are also a pretty eventful bunch. (We love events, too!) Hosting and sponsoring events is a great way to meet with your prospective customers and current clients in person, which allows you to establish and build relationships. Don’t just use events to try to sell your products and services, though. Take this time to learn more about the people you’re doing business with! Keep notes on your conversations so you’ll be able to customize your follow-up efforts. It shows your prospects and clients that you’re listening and interested in what they have to say. Not making the follow up calls yourself? Make sure to share the info with your sales team. The more information you capture and communicate back to your team, the more effective those follow-ups will be.
One event-related submission that stood out to me was A Leap Ahead IT’s submission. They demonstrated the value of face-to-face meetings perfectly. During the event, they used real-life examples of local companies and organizations that had experienced catastrophic results because they relied on rotating hard-drives or tape cradles. Using actual examples conveyed the message so effectively because the SMBs could see they were companies just like them. A Leap Ahead IT’s event generated positive results, and they’re planning to implement them every quarter! Need help with planning an event for your own MSP? Follow these tips from our local lunch extraordinaire, Katie Sousa (She’s planned over 100 events!).
All-in-all, MSPs need to develop a strategic marketing mix to get results. Learn from what’s working and continue tweaking what’s not in order to become efficient and successful in your MSP marketing efforts. If you’re having trouble ramping up efforts, you can also try incorporating an external marketing resource. For example, you can check out Stuart Crawford’s (he was also one of the judges of the MSP Marketing Masters Awards) company Ulistic for further support.
Image: Courtesy of Results Technology
