15 tips on how to market effectively when you’re an MSP of one, part 1

With the end of another year, and a bright, shiny new year just ahead, many businesses take stock to reflect on their accomplishments and what they still need to do.

In this vein, I have been getting quite a few questions lately about marketing and lead generation—specifically, how to conduct marketing when the MSP is small, without a lot of time or money to devote to such an initiative.

So, for the month of December, I have written a two-part blog series to provide 15 tips on how to effectively market when you are an MSP of one.

15 tips on how to effectively market when you are an MSP of one (tips 1–8)

1. Create a marketing plan

There is no silver bullet when it comes to marketing, and with so many different marketing tactics, how do you decide which ones to implement? As a team of one, be cognizant that you won’t be able to do it all. So, develop a marketing plan and use it as your roadmap to help provide you with a direction and a focus. Key items to incorporate into your marketing roadmap include:

• Establishing your ideal client profile so you know what type of businesses you would like to target, and
• Setting measurable goals that you want to obtain in the short, medium, and long term, based on what activities you can realistically do.

2. Optimize your website, including leveraging SEO basics

Ensure your website is up to date, without old or inaccurate blog posts or articles, or broken links or 404 errors. Make sure its messaging is clear and direct and expresses your business’s core value proposition. Also be sure to focus on the SEO basics to attract organic search traffic. SEO optimization can be tricky to master, so don’t hesitate to call on the experts for help. Think of your website as your 24/7/365 marketing and sales resource, continually working to help promote you and your MSP, even when you’re focusing on other areas of your business.

3. Create a social media calendar

One activity that you must include in your marketing plan is building and cultivating your online social media presence. Choose which social platforms you want to use, and then make a commitment to post regularly to those sites. To avoid getting overwhelmed, choose one social site to start—my site of choice is LinkedIn; it’s the best site for B2B marketing. Use your LinkedIn feed to promote your blog posts to help drive traffic to your website, run polls and collect feedback, and directly engage with your connections to help build up your audience.

To help with your posting, create a content calendar outlining what you would like to post each day and when. To simplify this, create themes for each day of the week, which can help provide you with additional inspiration and direction. Examples of possible theme days could be #Motivational Mondays, #TechTip Tuesdays, #WednesdayWisdoms, #ThrowBack Thursdays, and #FridayReads. Base your themes on your interests and target audience.

4. Create and update your social media profiles

Although you may be an MSP of one, be sure your solo-employee status is not reflected in your social media profile. Ensure all components of the profile page are complete, and that you spend money each year on professional head shots to keep your profile picture current. In Sam Rathling’s book LinkedIn Bound: 8 Social Selling Strategies to Generate Leads on LinkedIn, she devotes an entire chapter to optimizing your LinkedIn profile. After all, your social media profile is your first chance to make a great first impression, so don’t lose potential leads because of a tired, outdated profile picture and a nearly empty profile page.

5. Embrace automation where you can

Once you’ve created your social media calendar, automate your posting schedule so you can organize your postings well in advance. That frees you of the stress of deciding what you will post on any given day. There are many cost-effective social media scheduling software suites to choose from today. You just need to decide what works well for you and your budget. And when is the best time to post? According to a study of 30,000 social media posts by Hootsuite, the best time to post on Facebook is 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursdays; for Twitter it’s 8 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, and for LinkedIn it’s 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

6. Create content that’s engaging and timeless—aka “evergreen” content

Evergreen content remains relevant, is not time-sensitive, and drives traffic to your website for a long time after its initial publication. If you are going to devote time to creating blog posts, articles, and whitepapers, that content should be as pertinent as possible, for as long as possible, to make the most out of your limited marketing cycles. Blogs or articles that contain lists, tips, tricks, and how-tos make great “evergreen” content.   

7. Reuse and repurpose content in a variety of different ways

Don’t feel pressured to create 100% original, fresh content all of the time. You can repurpose content by putting a fresh spin on something you have already created, with the goal of reaching new audiences. Turn a blog post into a video how-to. Expand on a blog post, turn it into an ebook, and make it downloadable from your website. Turn testimonials you have received into web content or social posts. Update older blogs with new content and revitalize it.

8. Don’t neglect the power of call to actions (CTAs) in your blog posts and on your website

When writing your blog posts, ensure you insert a call to action to help steer the reader to your website. When designing your website, ensure that it has a variety of call to actions embedded throughout to encourage visitors to engage more with your website. Examples include “Subscribe Today to Receive Our Monthly Newsletter” or “Click Here to Get Started On Your Complimentary Security Assessment.” Include CTAs not only on your homepage, but also on your product pages, your FAQ pages, your about us pages, and any resource pages as well to help generate leads that you may not have been capturing before.

I hope this helps you build a picture of how to start to get your marketing into shape. Make sure to check out my next blog, when I’ll continue with parts 9 – 15!

Stefanie Hammond is head sales and marketing nerd at N‑able. You can follow her on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @sales_mktg_nerd.