MSP lead generation can be the most challenging part of running your business.
Traffic is easy. Simply generate high-quality, super engaging connect, throw some cash at ads and sit back.
Even so, unless you convince your visitors to give you their contact information, you’ll quickly disappear like smoke in a tornado.
Of course, that’s precisely what your competitors want … so they can grab your customer’s attention and, by extension, take them away from you.
Therefore, creating a well-thought-out and effective managed service lead generation strategy is essential to keeping your business afloat.
But, how do you do it?
This post will give you a step-by-step outline. We’ll breakdown what MSP lead generation is, walk you through creating an optimized process for it, and give you an actionable lead management template you can start to use right away.
What Is MSP Lead Generation?
Managed services lead generation involves getting contact details from your website or social media traffic. The idea is to drive your contacts toward a conversation later, such as a purchase or subscription.
Without lead generation, your MSP business has zero influence on the target client’s buyer journey.
Without a robust lead generation plan, you’re just lazing around, fidgeting as potential customers dart around you like fruit fries (with much the same attention spans).
You see…
Getting those potential MSP customers to land near you is one thing. However, converting them into buying customers is entirely different.
Do you know what this means?
Well, it implies that you have to tag your leads in some way so that you find them again later.
And, let’s be honest, MSP lead generation, when done right, puts you a step closer to making profits.
The fact is, 82 percent of companies that generate less than $250,000 annually produce one hundred or few leads per month.
Most companies that generate one hundred to five hundred leads per month make $1 million or more annually on the flip side.
What’s more?
More than 45 percent of companies generate 10,000 leads per month, rake in $1 billion per year.
How Do You Create An Effective MSP Lead Generation Strategy
Yes. Creating a robust, scalable managed services lead generation framework can help you close more sales.
Follow these steps to make it happen.
1. Turn Traffic Into Leads
This is where it starts – converting visitors to your website into potential customers. The thing is, there’s a high chance that anybody who stumbles across your business is a potential MSP customer.
We’re talking about a person who’s seen your brand on social media channels, read your blog post (inbound traffic), or clicked on your ad (outbound traffic).
Sure, drawing people to your site is great. Even so, traffic can be worthless if you don’t know what to do with it.
Think about it – up to 97 percent of people who visit your website for the first time fail to convert – this means that traffic is easily the greatest vanity of MSP marketing.
Until you persuade your visitors to provide you with their contacts, they’re nothing more than a passing cloud.
What are we saying? We’re simply telling you that without an inbound lead generation strategy that turns your blog readers, ad clickers, and social media traffic into leads, those visitors will quickly disappear without a trace.
Why?
Well, because you have no channel to reach out to and drive them down your MSP marketing/sales channel.
So, how do you convert your visitors into leads?
By using landing pages, content marketing, forms, lead ads, pop ups, and opt-in bars to collect your traffic’s contact information.
Let’s break it down further:
Content marketing (focusing on inbound lead generation) is an excellent long-term tactic to generate top-of-the-funnel leads. Still, such leads require a great deal of nurturing to convert them into sales.
Google lead form and Facebook lead ads can come in handy when you want to launch an MSP lead generation that focuses around a single offer.
Landing pages can convert up to 25 percent of targeted traffic. Read this article to learn how to optimize your landing pages for conversion.
Popups convert a measly 4.22 percent of targeted viewers. However, they’re a great way to turn your blog readers into leads.
To get started with landing pages and popups, you can use lead generation platforms such as Instapage or Unbounce.
You can fine-tune their vast collection of templates to suit your MSP business model and traffic. Be sure to create your copy and offers (you can go with a free trial, eBook, or blog subscription) in exchange for contact details.
Looking for some inspiration? Check out our landing page to help get your creative juices flowing.
2. Qualify New Leads
Once you’ve generated an MSP lead, you must qualify it. In essence, this translates to segmentation.
Remember, each lead is different. One person might be ready to sign up for your services, while another might know what your business is all about but are reluctant to pay for it.
It is for this reason that you must use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool.
That way, you can keep track of your leads and, most importantly, qualify them.
Why is qualifying leads a crucial element of managed services lead generation?
Because it allows you to optimize communication and nurture your leads through the sales funnel quickly. It also enables you to create content that is likely to result in a conversion.
On top of that, when you qualify and nurture leads, you can reduce sales-related expenses by as much as 30 percent and boost sales opportunities by up to 20 percent.
Tried-and test MSP lead qualifications strategies include:
Marketing Qualified Lead – This is a lead worth chasing – a person who matches your company’s target client persona.
Sales Qualified Lead– A lead that is interested in purchasing. They’re interested depending on what service/product your MSP business is selling.
Product Qualified Lead – This is a person who has used your service, albeit through a freemium trial or model.
Service Qualified Lead – This is someone who has contacted your sales desk and told them that he/she wants to buy.
3. Nurture And Manage New Leads
You’ve generated and qualified a lead. Now it’s time to nurture and help them grow. For this, you must create a lead nurturing procedure that helps drive potential customers through your sales funnel.
Here, segmentation should come into play. The idea is to ensure that you sent specific communications to your leads depending on the conversion stage they’re in.
Through segmentation, creating personalized marketing messages increases the open rate by 28 percent compared to 18.3 percent for non-personalized marketing. You can send messages to potential customers based on how you qualified them.
In addition, be sure to send the resources to enable them to interact with your business or product even more. Growth Generators lead management template can help you stay on top of your leads, segment, and reach out to potential customers to drive them down your sales funnel.
4. Send Your Leads To Sales
When you have turned a lead into a person who’s now considering purchasing your services, it’s time to hand over the baton to your B2B sales team.
Send potential clients to your sales team and allow them to seal the deal.
Your sales department must focus on turning a client’s desire for your service into the actual action of buying it.
And to top it all off, your sales team, together with support, should work to retain clients and upsell them to higher tiers of your service.
5. Analyze Your Lead Generation Process And Repeat
Like any other B2B marketing plan, MSP lead generation is a procedure that requires constant evaluation.
While you can test and make changes, be sure to focus on your lead generation funnel’s bottom level.
For example, a landing page that brings in emails from 20 percent of your traffic might not be worth much compared to a page that nets phone numbers from 5 percent of your visitors.
After all, a high-quality lead is more valuable than a low-quality lead. You should, therefore, aim to generate one high-quality lead than five bad ones.
Implement A/B testing to determine which pages generate better leads, provide helpful insights about your customers, and persuade them to buy from your business.
Remember, each target audience will react to different lead generation and marketing plans depending on your specific MSP segment.
Optimizing MSP Lead Generation And Management With Templates
Here’s the thing:
Converting your traffic into leads, qualifying your visitors, and keeping tabs on where potential clients are on the sales funnel can be challenging even with a CRM tool.
And, the last thing any MSP business wants to do is to mismanage a lead… doing so means a lost client and, by extension, negative ROI.
When you keep track of your MSP prospects, you can know how to personalize your messaging to increase your conversion chances.
The Growth Generators lead management template allows you to ensure your sales and marketing team lead from the same script throughout the lead generation process.
Feel free to duplicate the template and use it for your multiple offerings. That way, you don’t have to lose a lead due to the mismanagement of information.
Apart from helping you handle your leads effectively, this template enables you to monitor individual team members’ performance. On top of that, it can help you evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
The Bottom Line
Your MSP lead generation strategy needs to be well-thought-out and, most importantly, implemented correctly.
If you’re an MSP or in Managed IT services business, Growth Generators can create and implement an effective MSP lead generation campaign to increase your sales and revenue.
With years of experience working with small and large MSP businesses, we will find and deliver qualified lead opportunities through comprehensive, well-planned B2B lead generation services.
Get in touch with one of our industry experts or book a free consultation today.
Talk to use – let us power your managed service lead generation strategy!