Up-and-coming MSPs were given a series of marketing strategy tips at last week’s annual NerdioCon event in Punta Cana, the Dominican last week.
IT Europa heard that desktop virtualisation and cloud services vendor Nerdio itself had experienced a number of trial and error moments since its inception in 2016, when it came to marketing.
Initially, the founders ran an MSP, before opening up shop as a provider of software to MSPs to make virtualised desktops easier to run with Microsoft software. It then became an established virtualisation software provider to system integrators in the enterprise space.
That journey sometimes delivered mixed marketing messages to the overall market, that Nerdio had to overcome, and will be something other organisations will face when embarking on their own marketing journeys – not least those with limited budgets.
In a workshop hosted by Liz Hoscheid, senior director of marketing at Nerdio, and Nicole Kimmick, senior director of enterprise marketing at Nerdio, attendees were told outsourcing was a good and cost effective way to get marketing strategies off the ground. “We did a lot of it ourselves at Nerdio at the beginning,” the audience was told, and some marketing-related outsourcing is still conducted by the vendor.
Attendees were further told:
-Content is the most important thing to start with on your website, and your social channels, if you have them. With webinars and news of training events that have happened being key themes, for instance.
-You need a solid marketing plan to identify your customers, and what you can do to reach them – possibly through a one-page document.
-For branding, you can crowdsource/outsource ideas for logos and colour schemes etc for your corporate identity, and only pay for what you choose from a selection presented, via platforms such as 99Designs.
-You should decide on your branding before generating any corporate content. And you must be consistent in the way it is presented.
-Establish credibility in the market through reviews and listings that can be pushed through social media channels. Ask for reviews from customers through review sites – while some will not cooperate, others will.
-A company Facebook page may well be a good start for some companies, for instance. A LinkedIn page may well work for others too.
-The company website should be the biggest revenue generator for the firm. If it isn’t, there’s something wrong. But there’s lots of ways you can improve matters, not least search engine optimisation techniques – through better content, better headlines etc.
-Overall, ‘done’ is better than ‘perfect’ – get content up ASAP, it can be improved along the way. Don’t fret about getting everything right first time.
-And, when it comes to public relations and communications, determine your priorities in terms of analyst relations, media placements in industry publications and websites, press releases, podcasts and industry awards, for example.
