In my 18 years as an IT support company executive, I’ve learned a lot about the client’s needs. I can rattle off solutions to common problems and give you a laundry list of ways to proactively move your business forward.
However, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned for my own company is that marketing and business are the same things. The way that you communicate with your clients should mirror your own mission statement and the way that your MSP functions. This is where I see a lot of MSPs getting off track. They think that marketing is a separate entity that should be left to their marketing department.
The reality is the whole company needs to be on the same page because this is how you move forward authentically. As IT professionals, we all know what’s important for our clients. We can see it the minute we assess their businesses. Yet, we don’t always convey it the right way, and that’s never been clearer than with Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) compliance.
CMMC compliance marketing challenges
We all know this is a huge issue for our clients who work with the Department of Defense (DoD). It’s confusing because they keep changing timelines and regulatory requirements. And if it confuses us, think about how our clients who don’t work directly with IT feel. It’s one part legalese and two parts technical speak.
That’s not an easy recipe for clear communication. So, it’s your responsibility to simplify it for them. And this is a benefit to you, as an MSP. Look at the scenario from the client’s perspective and you’ll see that there are ways to add to your offerings that make their lives easier while giving your business another revenue stream.
Marketing ideas and new offerings
There have been a lot of articles and content written about CMMC in the last year. How much have you been covering the topic? Have you made those pieces of content readily available to your audience?
Making the information easy to find is important. Remember, you don’t have to develop content directly on CMMC. You can always share articles and resources from reputable sources and add your comments to make them easy for your followers to understand. Here are some examples of this:
Blog Posts: If you run a blog on your MSP’s website, create a series that’s easy to find on current issues involving CMMC. You can tag or categorize all of the posts so that your audience can quickly find all of your information on the subject. You should also make sure that the date is clear at the top of the post because the information is changing so rapidly.
Make sure you check back to old posts and update them. Or, you can go back to old posts, note that information may have changed, and include links to newer posts for them to find. Make the information easy to follow and digest. It provides your customers with a good resource to stay on pace with changes and updates to CMMC.
Newsletter Content: If you have a regular newsletter, add content about new changes to CMMC. If you don’t want to cover the topic in great detail, you can just include a sidebar with links to interesting articles or the latest updates on the DoD website.
Added Services: We’ve read a ton about CMMC and, if your clients are like mine, you’ve gotten questions about CMMC and how it impacts their business. Instead of fielding all of the questions for free, what if you offered a service? There are a couple of ways you can approach this: 1) You might host a webinar or seminar to help clients develop their own internal strategy, offered to IT teams for the companies you serve; or 2)You might develop a managed service to work with your client’s compliance concerns for them, and offer this service in different tiers.
Additional Content: The content you add will depend on what channels you’re cultivating. You might write about CMMC for an outside publication or include tweets and social media posts on your regular platforms. You can also add White Pages or pillar content to your website to serve as a full resource for your audience.
CMMC has been an important topic for many of us in the industry. Realistically, though, you can use this advice to address any area where you see a need for your clients.
The goal of your marketing is to authentically meet the needs of your audience. Techniques may change, but finding ways to meet clients where they have a pain point is always going to be at the core of the messaging.
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