What is an MSP marketing audience and why have one?

As explored in our recent video, linked here, marketing your business is a journey – a series of events that are stitched together. A process to take a prospect through, all while working to build their trust, awareness and, eventually, their interest.

Before embarking on any journey in life, we take time to ready ourselves. From our mental state to our resources, mapping, and planning; trying our level best to predict every eventuality in making sure we have all the necessary tools in our arsenal to have the best experience. To quote the Scouts, “be prepared”.

Marketing and growing your MSP is no different.

You must be prepared in taking both your company and your prospects on a journey. A random foray into sales and marketing will more than likely result in your fingers being burned – money wasted, confidence knocked, and pride dented.

So, why not instead do your homework first? Lay the groundwork necessary to embark upon an expedition to grow your MSP through well-structured sales and marketing activity.

Three pillars

We have identified three pillars that make-up the components necessary to have at-the-ready to get the most in return from your MSP marketing activity.

1. Audience
2. Message
3. Broadcast

Without these firmly in place, there will be nothing but disjointedness, closely followed by disappointment.

It all starts with a marketing audience

Whether you are hosting a music event, or are promoting your business, you need to be sure that someone is listening. Your entire efforts in vain, unless you cultivate the all-important right group of individuals or organisations that are plugged-in to your sales and marketing – from strategy, to message, through to execution.

Your audience will become your complete focus, and with the right targets in your crosshairs, that effort will reap rewards; with them at best, becoming disciples of your cause, and at worst, tentative to what you have to say.

Starting prematurely

A common mistake, seen so often within the MSP space, is one of having no audience at all. Blindly firing – like out of your marketing Uzi – in the random direction of anyone and everyone you happen upon; giving absolutely zero consideration to the uniqueness of the businesses and individuals you are broadcasting to, while too failing to best present how you are unique in catering to, and for, them.

If you are not stopping to consider who you should be marketing to, how can you ensure that your messages are relevant and engaging within their business? How can you ensure that you are standing yourselves apart from your competition?

Do not waste your money by broadcasting untargeted messages, which will only shine your MSP in the same light as all of those others.

Selecting your audience

Relevancy here is key – relevancy of the prospective customers to you, and you to them. Therefore, the target demographics, (a.k.a the components which make-up how your audience members are a lookalike of one another), are vitally important.

In forming your target demographics, you must consider a few things…

1. Which industry sectors do you know well enough (in a technical sense)?
2. What is the minimum and maximum size of business we can facilitate?
3. Which size and types of businesses fit well commercially for us?
4. Which size and types of businesses do we have case examples of already?

Knowing the audience numbers

Once you have finished dreaming of winning 000’s of those holy grail businesses at the top-end of your seat count, you may need to bring yourself down from the ceiling and further consider…

1. How many of those types of businesses physically exist?
2. How many of those businesses exist within reach?

As you already know, sales is all about numbers. (Within reason), the greater the audience, the greater the percentage chances are in generating leads, and winning new business.

You may have some perfect-fit prospects in mind, and this is a great place to start, but if they exist only few in number, then you are on the back foot before you have even begun your campaign activity.

For example, in most regions (certainly within the UK) there are four or five times more businesses that have fewer than 24 seats, than there are with 25 or over – limiting your prospect audience to only the upper echelon of IT users, will restrict your market exposure quite considerably. Why would you limit the number of organisations before you even begin?

To help you plan any sales or marketing activity, and to be sure you reach its potential value, you need to calculate the size of that marketing opportunity. Take the demographic that you have planned, the size of their business, their industry, their location, and do some research to understand how many businesses exist within your target market.

Within certain countries there are Governmental organisations that can help with this very research – within the UK and US we are especially lucky. Both the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the US Census Bureau, produce statistics to identify how many organisations exist in particular demographic groups – by revenue, location, employee range and industry sector.

Now it’s time to build your marketing message

Now you have created the ideal demographic for what your marketing should look like, what should you do with it? In the next two articles we will take a look at how to build the intelligence in that audience, how to tailor the marketing messages to them, and how to begin engaging with them by broadcasting a variety of marketing messages through different mediums.