Working at N-able for over 17 years, I’m not really considered a “spring chicken”. And I’m okay with that. I’m okay with the fact that I am getting older and I have learned to embrace this.
It has been said that after the age of 40, a women’s metabolism decreases by 2% a year, and women lose muscle mass to the tune of 1% a year. What does this mean? For the average woman, it means that it makes it easier to gain weight, and thus much harder to lose weight, as we age.
Being a woman in her 40s, I began to seriously consider what needed to be done to improve my health to help offset the impact of aging. So back on January 1, I made a commitment to start a daily regimen of exercising for a minimum of 45 minutes a day. I called it my #CloseThoseRings2022 initiative. I have exercised on and off over the years, but making a daily commitment to exercise is a big goal for me and it was going to require willpower, patience, and discipline to execute consistently each and every day.
And that same prioritization and consistency are the very same qualities that MSPs need to have when it comes to dealing with their ongoing challenges with marketing.
Oftentimes, as I’m speaking to MSPs about their marketing struggles, I’ll get asked: “What is the one thing that the best-in-class MSPs are doing from a marketing perspective that seems to be working really well for them in generating new leads for their business?”
Essentially, what they want to know is: Is there a silver bullet to successful marketing?
Yes—there is. And there are two actually:
- Start
- Keep going
You need to make a commitment to building out your marketing plan (if you don’t have one that you are following already), and then you need to have the fortitude to execute your plan in an ongoing and consistent manner. Marketing isn’t a one-and-done type of initiative. It isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. It is dynamic and fluid and always requires tweaking to help improve results.
While no one specific marketing tactic will work to deliver fresh, new leads into your sales funnel, creating an integrated marketing strategy that encompasses multiple tactics targeted at your desired audience and is implemented in a consistent and deliberate manner, is the key to garnering long-term marketing success.
So how do you prioritize and drive consistency in your marketing? There are four ways you can accomplish this.
Four ways to prioritize and drive consistency in your marketing
1. Get away
If you are frustrated that you can’t find the time to develop your marketing plan, or you seem to be interrupted at every turn, you need to leave. Take yourself off-site so that you can remove yourself from all distractions. Your employees, your customers, and your family can all survive without you for a couple of days. Turn the phone off. Shut down your email. Close out your Teams chat. Allow yourself the time to think about where you want to take your business and what you need to do from a marketing perspective to get there. Then, make it a priority to schedule these types of planning retreats with yourself at least twice a year so that you can analyze your results and make adjustments to the plan as needed.
2. Start slow and leverage automation
There is so much that can be done from a marketing and promotions standpoint, but don’t feel the need to do it all at once. Look at what you want to achieve, look at what is missing that will prevent you from meeting those goals, and then build out a manageable plan that you can easily implement and maintain. Then, as you gain your marketing confidence, build on that plan. The important point here is: Start doing “something” on a regular and consistent basis.
This is where our N-able MarketBuilder platform can be beneficial for you to use. With over 60 distinct campaigns and hundreds of pieces of collateral that can be easily customized with your MSP’s logo, we have done all of the creative legwork for you to get started on your marketing journey. And with a social media and email scheduler built right into the platform, you can automate your emails and your social posts with ease, creating that consistency you require.
3. Stay the course
You may be tempted to try the latest marketing trend or want to change things up because you just had a great idea, but try to resist the urge to implement knee-jerk or sudden strategy changes. Actions like these will just cause distractions and derail you, causing you to lose focus. Stay true to the plan you created and then, in your next self-imposed planning retreat, use that time to strategize and see what changes need to be made in the next iteration of your marketing plan.
4. Outsource to a marketing agency
Lastly, if you know what you need to do, but still can’t seem to “fit” marketing into your day-to-day activities, then maybe it’s time to bring in some outside help. Effective marketing comes from the successful execution of your marketing plan. And if building the plan and then executing that plan is something that is challenging for you, then leveraging the guidance of an outside marketing agency could help. They can help build out the plan and they can ensure that there is consistency in the follow-through and implementation of that plan. There is a discipline around it that is needed. And if you know you do not have the ability or the time to truly focus on marketing, then hiring an agency might help, as it will then allow you to refocus your energies on other areas of your business that need your attention.
I will meet my personal health goal this year by making #CloseThoseRings2022 a daily priority for myself. And the same will be true when it comes to evaluating the success of your marketing strategy. Successful marketing that generates quality leads is not going to happen overnight or over the course of a couple of weeks. It is the result of thoughtful planning and execution and making it a priority within your MSP—every day.
In the great words of Tony Robbins: “In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.”
This guest blog is courtesy of N-able. Stefanie Hammond is head sales and marketing Nerd at N-able. You can follow her on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @sales_mktg_nerd. Read more N-able guest blogs here. Regularly contributed guest blogs are part of ChannelE2E’s sponsorship program.
