MSP Marketing: Should you build an in-house team or use an outside agency?

You have made the decision to finally start taking the marketing and lead gen activities of your MSP a bit more seriously, but, as the business owner, you recognize that you don’t have the time or energy to take this initiative on yourself. So, what do you do?

Do you decide to hire internally and build your MSP marketing department from the ground up? Or do you decide to outsource the marketing function to a third-party agency and have them manage it all for you?

How do you decide how to market your MSP business? And is it even an all-or-nothing decision?

There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, and which way you go will depend on your long-term goals and objectives and your overall budget.

Benefits of outsourcing to a third-party MSP marketing agency

1. Get immediate access to a team of specialized marketing experts

What does it mean when we talk about “marketing”? Marketing is such a broad term that consists of a wide range of roles and responsibilities including: website, social media, print, email, PPC, trade shows, events, branding, SEO, blogging, content marketing, etc. And finding one or even two people that have expertise in each of these areas will be very hard to come by.

Whereas with a quality marketing agency, they have already taken the time to assemble a team of talented marketing specialists who possess extensive knowledge in each of these areas to help develop your MSP marketing plan.

2. Keep you and your team focused on your core competencies and business responsibilities

If you decide to build a marketing department from the ground up, that is likely to require a great deal of time and energy, especially in the beginning. Instead of focusing on the daily duties needed to run and manage your MSP, you will now need to the find time to now hire, train and integrate new staff members into the team instead. Outsourcing the marketing function will allow you to refocus and rededicate your efforts to the more pressing priorities facing your business.

3. Can be more cost-effective and more easily scalable than hiring permanent, full-time staff

If you are a smaller MSP, outsourcing your marketing could be a more cost-effective and budget-friendly option for you, especially if you only need a few services in the beginning. And then, as your MSP grows and requires additional marketing expertise to continue your expansion, you can subscribe to more and more of the marketing agency’s services depending on your needs. Outsourcing provides you with the ability to scale up as you require additional marketing support, without needing to hire more expensive headcount.

4. Provides increased stability during this time of the “great resignation”

As with any type of outsourcing initiative with a third-party company, the biggest benefit is that you have people completing a job for you that you don’t directly need to manage or be responsible for. It is the third-party company’s responsibility to train and manage those employees and deal with any HR headaches that arise, like turnover. As such, working with an outsourced MSP marketing agency can provide greater stability for your own MSP as you don’t need to be involved in the hiring and retention of key marketing employees.

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Benefits of building an in-house MSP marketing department

1. Better control of the branding and messaging

You know your business, your industry, and your customers best. And when you need to conduct any type of market research to help in your campaign messaging and branding, you have the benefit of being able to leverage and engage with your base of clients directly—the ones who know you and you know them.

Whereas with an outside marketing agency, they typically don’t have this level of access to customers. As such, it can be a real struggle to develop proper messaging and positioning benefits to an audience that they don’t have a strong connection to.

2. Complete control over the entire marketing process

The managed service provider industry is a unique, niche industry. Keeping the marketing in-house means that all elements of the marketing strategy are handled by only one company—yours! This is beneficial because all decision-making authority remains with you and, as such, you don’t need to worry about the hassle of trying to deal with outside parties who may not understand the MSP industry like you do. And by keeping everything in-house, it provides an additional measure of accountability that an outside agency cannot provide.

3. Provides the ability to nurture and grow talented employees

If company culture and employee morale are priorities of your MSP, and you feel that you have cultivated a nurturing and inspiring workplace environment for your staff over the years, then you have the key ingredients necessary to foster new talent who have the potential to grow into long-term, loyal employees.

Now, admittedly, this is not an exhaustive list of the pros and cons of each option.

If you are trying to decide which path your MSP should take when it comes to the next phase of your marketing and lead-gen activities, then you will want to join me on July 19 for a special office hours session where I will be hosting a unique panel discussion with two long-time N‑able partners focused on marketing and lead-gen and how each of them decided to tackle the marketing function within their own respective MSPs.

Stephanie Clouser, Chief Branding Officer, PCA Technology Solutions, and Ori Segall, Chief Technology Officer, PBS, will be sharing their insights and experiences of what it takes to spin up and manage an internal marketing department and will outline what qualities you should be looking for if seeking a partnership with a third-party marketing agency is more of your preference. It will be a discussion you won’t want to miss.

And remember: Our Head Nerd boot camps and office hours sessions are open to any MSP that is interested in quality educational training to help improve their MSP. You can register HERE.

Stefanie Hammond is Head Sales and Marketing Nerd at N‑able. You can follow her on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @sales_mktg_nerd.