Taking Your Business to the Next Level: A Marketing

[email protected] www.totalproductmarketing.com1.855.646.8662

Taking Your Business to the Next Level: A Marketing Strategy Guide for MSPs and Cloud Providers—The HostingCon 2016 Marketing Bootcamp Presentation

WHAT DID HOSTINGCON 2016 ATTENDEES SAY?

"THE MARKETING BOOTCAMP WAS BY FAR THE BEST ACTIVITY AT HOSTINGCON 2016.

I liked that the TPM team talked about specific topics as they gave us tips for managing

social networks and also precise information to improve the communication with our

clients. Highly recommended."

C R I S T I A N C A S A M AYO R , G E N E R A L M A N AG E R

iiTaking Your Business to the Next Level: A Marketing Strategy Guide for MSPs and Cloud Providers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section 1: Know Your Audience – Creating Buyer Personas ..................... 1What Are Buyer Personas?How to Create Your Buyer Personas

Section 2: Understanding Your Audience – The Buyer’s Journey ............. 5What Is the Buyer’s Journey?Mapping Your Buyer’s Journey

Section 3: Creating Compelling Content and Social Strategies ................. 8Think Like Your AudienceFour Keys to Engaging ContentUse Social to Give Your Content a Fighting Chance

Section 4: Measure Engagement to Improve Your Content .....................12Always Be ListeningMeasuring the Value of Your Content

iiiTaking Your Business to the Next Level: A Marketing Strategy Guide for MSPs and Cloud Providers

Who Wants More Leads?Research shows that one of the top challenges faced by MSPs and hosting companies is

generating and converting new leads.i

At our Marketing Strategy Bootcamp at HostingCon 2016, we spent four hours with a

group of industry professionals in an effort to help them overcome that obstacle. They had

more questions than we could answer in a single afternoon, prompting us to follow-up with

a more in-depth resource.

T H I S E B O O K E X PA N D S on the topics we addressed in our strategy session,

providing actionable steps to help you reach your target market and nurture

them from prospects to leads to customers.

Happy marketing!

ivTaking Your Business to the Next Level: A Marketing Strategy Guide for MSPs and Cloud Providers

1Taking Your Business to the Next Level: A Marketing Strategy Guide for MSPs and Cloud Providers

Section 1: Know Your Audience — Creating Buyer Personas

DO YOU KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE? WHAT DO THEY VALUE MOST?

What information and solutions are they searching for? Successful marketing is personal and targeted,

leading your prospect to feel it was created just for them.

Of course, you’d love to sell your products or services to everyone in the world, but that “spray and pray”

strategy doesn’t make for effective marketing. It’s important not to think of this exercise as excluding those

who don’t quite match your target audience; it’s about getting to know the people most likely to buy from

you so you can market to them most effectively.

WHAT ARE BUYER PERSONAS?

B2B marketing guru Tony Zambito defines buyer

personas as “research-based archetypal (modeled)

representations”ii of:

► Who buyers are ► What they are trying to achieve ► How they think and buy ► Why they make buying decisions ► Where they buy ► When they make a purchase decision

Too many companies hear about buyer personas and interpret it as profiling or segmenting customers

according to sales data. Profiling can be valuable, but it does absolutely nothing to help you understand your

buyers’ stories. Buyer personas use customer research to create models of buying behaviors. Developing

effective buyer personas requires real research into your audience.

YOUR BRAND VIABILITY



Average Age

Marital Status/Children

Personal Style

Level of Education

Conservative/Risk Taker/ Moderate

Can this persona relate to

the brand?

PERSONAL PROFILE

SOFT FACTORS

RELATE

GOOD

ACCESS

AVERAGE

Purchase Attributes

Motivations/Priorities

Perceived Barriers to Success

Decision Criteria

Can this persona access

the brand?

Pain/Problem Solving

Strategic Initiatives

Objectives /Goals

Does the brand offer this

persona value?

BUYER JOURNEY TRIGGERS

VALUE

POOR

PUT SIMPLY, YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHO YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE.

With careful research, you can paint a detailed picture of what your customers need and what motivates them.

This lets you speak to them in words they’re ready and eager to hear.

Once you have a clear picture of your target audience, you can evaluate how relatable, accessible, and valuable

your brand appears to them. If your brand doesn’t resonate with your target audience, you now have the

insight you need to improve. After all, if you don’t provide value to your audience, the best content marketing

campaign or social media strategy in the world can’t fix that.

LO O K AT P RO D U C T S , PAC K AG E S , C H A N N E L S , P R I C I N G , M E S S AG I N G , S A L E S , A N D S U P P O RT TO S E E H O W

YO U ’ V E B U I LT A F O C U S E D AT T E N T I O N TO WA R D S T H I S P E R S O N A .

HOW TO CREATE YOUR BUYER PERSONAS

Creating buyer personas takes a bit of time, but the effort will pay off. Resist the urge to develop personas

in an afternoon of brainstorming about who you believe your ideal customers to be. To be effective, your

buyer personas must be based on research.

THERE ARE A NUMBER OF METHODS YOU CAN USE TO ACCESS THE INFORMATION YOU NEED:

1. ANALYTICS ON EXISTING CONTENT: If you already have content out in the world, check

who’s reading it. Look for trends or patterns in how readers find and consume your content to

identify whether it engages your audience.

2. YOUR SALES TEAM: Sales representatives are on the front lines interacting with your

customers and prospects. Talk to them about the feedback they receive (both good and bad)

and identify what customers like and don’t like about you.

3. INTERVIEWS: Don’t skip this one! There is no better way to find out who your audience is

and what they’re looking for than to ask them directly. Talk with current and former customers,

prospects, and referrals and learn about their pain points and goals. How many people should

you interview? Pamela Vaughan of HubSpot says that when you can start predicting their

answers accurately, you can probably stop.iii



“I attended the Marketing Bootcamp at HostingCon 2016 with the aim of learning new marketing techniques and

to be exposed to the latest trends. Not only were all my expectations met but greatly exceeded. Dean and his team

from TPM were highly professional. I particularly enjoyed how the session was fluid and dynamically tailored to the

attendees, and not confined to a predetermined agenda. This allowed the session to take a form that resulted in a

number of GOLDEN NUGGETS OF ACTIONABLE ITEMS THAT I WILL BE TAKING BACK TO MY ORGANIZATION.

I would recommend this session to experienced marketers and to business owners alike.”

J O N AT H A N B E RG E R , F O U N D E R




Section 2: Understanding Your Audience – The Buyer’s Journey

WHAT IS THE BUYER’S JOURNEY?

How many of your customers research online before they reach out to your team?

Research from Accenture suggests that a whopping 94% of B2B buyers conduct online research as part

of their buying process.iv This means you need to provide the information they’re looking for in a way that

positions you as someone who understands their pain and can solve their problems — not sell them a product.

Of course, the information your prospects look for changes throughout their journey to a conversion. The

buyer’s journey refers to the three stages customers go through before making a purchase:

AWARENESS: In this early stage, the buyer experiences symptoms but doesn’t necessarily know

their cause. For example, an SMB owner may notice its website isn’t getting the traffic it had hoped

for. He or she doesn’t know why, but does know the site has a problem.

CONSIDERATION: At this stage, the buyer has identified the problem and starts to research

solutions. The SMB owner might now recognize that the company’s site isn’t optimized for search

engines, which makes it difficult for users to find. So now, the SMB actively researches ways to

improve its search rankings and attract more relevant visitors to the site.

DECISION: In this final stage, the customer has decided SEO services are needed to help the site

earn a top search-engine ranking. He or she begins to search for a solution provider to help.

Section 2: Understanding Your Audience – The Buyer’s Journey


MAPPING YOUR BUYER’S JOURNEY

Understanding the buyer’s journey is all well and good, but unless you use that information to shape your

content, it won’t make a significant difference to your marketing campaign.

You can determine which content is most effective, and when, by mapping your content to your buyer’s

journey. Categorize of each piece of content by:

USER BEHAVIOR: Your prospects’ behavior will vary depending on what stage they’re at in the

buyer journey. Are they trying to understand their problem, looking for possible solutions, or

researching providers who offer the solution they want?

CONTENT TYPE: Different types of content will be more or less relevant in different stages.

The SMB from our previous example didn’t start researching companies that offer SEO

services as soon as he recognized his website was slow. A datasheet of SEO services or a report

comparing multiple SEO agencies would have been of little value, but an eBook about the

common causes of poor website performance would be very informative.

KEYWORDS: The terms your prospects enter in an online search will also change as they move

through the different stages of their journey.

HERE ARE SEVERAL EXAMPLES OF COMMON SEARCH TERMS AT EACH STAGE:

Troubleshoot, Improve,

Optimize, Prevent

AWARENESS STAGE CONSIDERATION STAGE

Tool, Solution,

Service

Compare, Test,

Review, Benchmark

DECISION STAGE

BASED ON THESE THREE METRICS, DETERMINE WHICH STAGE OF THE BUYER’S JOURNEY

EACH PIECE OF YOUR CONTENT IS BEST SUITED TO, AND USE IT ACCORDINGLY.

“TPM’s Marketing Bootcamp provided both high level strategic marketing concepts and tactical marketing

guidance around complex concepts such as buyer personas, inbound marketing and content marketing.

They provided a collaborative atmosphere where they walked us through solving various marketing

challenges like turning customers into fans, building out a content pipeline and lead nurturing.

THEIR EXPERIENCE IN WORKING IN THE HOSTING MARKET CLEARLY SHOWED. A HIGHLY RECOMMENDED SESSION.”

TAY LO R K A R I M I , D I R E C TO R , E N T E R P R I S E S A L E S



Section 3: Creating Compelling Content and Social Strategies

THINK LIKE YOUR AUDIENCE

When you research a purchase for yourself or your organization, what information are you more likely to trust:

the ads would-be providers thrust in front of you, or the data and reviews you’ve discovered on your own and

gathered from colleagues? Your answer likely matches those of the very people you’re trying to sell to.

WE TRUST INFORMATION MORE WHEN WE GATHER IT OURSELVES BECAUSE IT FEELS

MORE AUTHENTIC. When you struggle with symptoms that cause you pain (figuratively or

literally), do you want to hear a laundry list of features, or do you want to know what it’s going to

do for you?

SELL BENEFITS, NOT SOLUTIONS. When you’ve got a sore throat, you want a medicine that

promises relief. You don’t care if it has eight new herbal ingredients or if it comes in economy-size

bottles for extra savings.

SMARTPHONES HAVE MADE SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEB SURFING THE NEW SMOKE BREAK.

When we’re bored or want a distraction, we go online. That means much of the time your

prospects are online, they’re looking for something that will entertain or engage them. So how do

you keep your audience engrossed in your content?

KEEP IT FUN. This applies especially to your social media strategy, but it can work for content

marketing, too. Use tweets or headlines that will grab your prospects’ attention and keep them

reading.



FOUR KEYS TO ENGAGING CONTENT

There is a formula for everything in marketing, and that includes creating compelling, readable,

shareable blog posts. Keep these tips in mind when you craft your content:

1. YOUR HEADLINE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR POST. Approximately half of the

time you spend on a blog post should be dedicated to composing a killer headline. After all, if your

headline falls flat, it’s unlikely your readers will read further.

2. YOUR AUDIENCE MUST BE ABLE TO FIND WHAT THEY’RE LOOKING FOR. Optimize your post

with keywords for search engines to ensure your blog gets found. Keep sentences in your first

paragraph short (long sentences signal dense, complex reading), and break up your body copy with

subheadings, bulleted lists, and blockquotes to make it easy for readers to find what they need. No

matter how interested they are in what you have to say, your prospects want to skim.

3. ASK READERS TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP. If you’ve created a piece of content that attracts

prospects, don’t let them leave without telling them what to do next. Include calls to action at

the middle and end of your content. Invite the readers to continue their journey with you by

downloading more content, signing up for an email list, or contacting you.

4. MAKE THE POST SHAREABLE. The more your post gets shared, the more leads it can bring

you. Include links for social sharing, highlight great quotes for tweeting, and be sure to monitor

and respond to comments. Blog posts of 1,500 words or more typically receive the most shares.

However, shares start to noticeably increase at 700 words, so make that your minimum if 1,500 is

unrealistic for you.

HELPFUL TOOLS FOR CONTENT CREATION:

► Use CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to measure the “oomph” of your headline.

► Optimize headlines and meta descriptions so they won’t be cut off in search results with SEO Mofo’s

Snippet Optimizer.

► Stuck for ideas? We use BuzzSumo and Answer the Public to see what people are searching for and

what content is currently popular.

► No one wants to be caught by the grammar police. Run your copy through Grammarly to eliminate

typos and errors.


http://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer

http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html

http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html

http://buzzsumo.com/

http://answerthepublic.com/

https://www.grammarly.com/


USE SOCIAL TO GIVE YOUR CONTENT A FIGHTING CHANCE

Just like there’s a formula for great blog posts, the most effective tweets and Facebook and LinkedIn posts

include several key elements:

1. A STRONG PROFILE: Regardless of which social network(s) you choose to use, a complete profile is an

absolute must. Make sure your profile image is clear and correctly sized and cropped. Use strong images

that identify your brand or tell its story with minimal text. Your handles, bios, and about sections

should succinctly communicate your benefits with high-emotion words, not list your products or

company stats.

2. HASHTAGS: You can reach new audiences who don’t know you but are interested in what you say with

judicious use of hashtags. Caution: make sure your hashtags are directly relevant and not too long

(#becausenoonelikestoreadlikethis).

3. IMAGES: Content with relevant visuals gets more views and shares on social media than content

without. Colorful graphics are attention-grabbing and, to be blunt, they take up more screen real estate,

so your followers can’t miss you in their feeds. Let your creative side loose or fire up your Shutterstock

subscription and dress up those posts. Canva.com makes it very easy to create eye-catching social

media images and is widely used by content marketers.

4. A CALL TO ACTION: What’s the first rule of calls to action or CTAs? HAVE A CTA. Don’t share great

posts with your fans, followers, or connections and then leave them wondering what to do next. Make

it easy for them to read your blog post, subscribe to your mailing list, or get in touch by including a

straightforward call to action.


C TA

H A S H TAGC O P Y

L I N K

P H OTO

https://www.canva.com

“I felt that TPM’s Marketing BootCamp at this year’s HostingCon 2016 was one of the MOST RELEVANT

MARKETING TALKS AT THE EVENT. I found that the talk had an ample level of participant interaction, and

was very pleased when TPM shared examples and details about marketing plans that made this BootCamp

a winner, especially on topics around understanding buyer personas. The talk gave us helpful insight into

the intricacies of creating our own plan, and we are looking forward to implementing what we learned!”

M O N T U C H A D H A , C TO



Section 4: Measure Engagement to Improve Your Content

ALWAYS BE LISTENING

Social media marketing is your megaphone. It can put you in front of your target audience and help them

recognize you as a solution to their problems. It is not, however, a magic button to push when you need

more leads. It takes time and consistency to build and engage a following. Inbound marketers are fond of

saying, “Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint,” and that’s absolutely true for social media.

To nurture prospects and keep customers engaged for the long haul, you need to:

1. ENGAGE: Take time building a following. Follow your

customers, your partners, and thought leaders in your

industry. Post, share, and retweet content that is of value to

your audience. Respond to questions or feedback. If you want

people to engage with your content, you must be active and

available in the channels they care about.

2. OBSERVE: Pay attention to your followers, and those you

follow. Who is influencing your circle? What topics and

opinions are trending? Marketing is a conversation, not a

monologue. The more you speak to your audience’s real

interests and concerns, the more they will feel you care.

3. MEASURE: You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Track

follower and fan totals, post engagements, and traffic to your

site to determine if your strategy is working.


Section 4: Measure Engagement to Improve Your Content

MEASURING THE VALUE OF YOUR CONTENT

Without clearly displayed numbers like followers or likes, measuring the value of your content can seem

a bit more complicated — but it doesn’t have to be. By tracking a few simple metrics, you should have no

trouble determining if your content strategy is working and which pieces are most useful:

1. PRODUCTION: Do you produce new content regularly? If not, look for bottlenecks in your workflow for

pieces that are routinely behind schedule. Does your content cover all stages of your buyers’ journeys?

Eliminate coverage gaps by mapping content to your buyers’ journeys, as discussed in Section 2.

2. REACH: Simply measuring clicks doesn’t give an accurate picture of how engaged your audience is.

Compare engagement metrics (views, downloads, opens) as well as content metrics (type of content,

target persona, buyer’s journey stage). And don’t forget to check for internal reach — make sure your

sales team uses and shares your content.

3. CONTENT SCORING: Which pieces of content help move your readers down the funnel, and which are

less fruitful? By measuring the ROI of your content, you can focus on producing more high-conversion

pieces. How do you score content? Follow the steps below.

Use analytics to view each piece of

content each lead consumes. For

example, let’s say Lead #1 consumed

five pieces of content in your funnel:

SCORE YOUR CONTENT IN 3 STEPS

Don’t forget to take cost into account. If eBook A scored twice as well as Blog Post A, but cost five times as much to produce, you’ll need to consider that when you calculate your ROI.

Score all the content that Lead #1

touched so the total adds up to one

(because he is one lead). Weight the

first piece and last piece more heavily

(because the first piece brought him

to you, and the last piece was what

inspired him to convert):

Total the scores for each piece of

content across all your leads to

determine which pieces most

effectively attract and convert leads:

#1 #2 #3

Asset

Blog Post A

Email A

eBook A

Blog Post B

Webinar A

Asset Score

Blog Post A 0.35

Email A 0.1

eBook A 0.1

Blog Post B 0.1

Webinar A 0.35

Total 1

Asset Score

Blog Post A 3.6

Email A 2

eBook A 7.1

Blog Post B 1.1

Webinar A 1.2


WE’RE HERE TO HELPAt Total Product Marketing, we live and breathe hosting provider and technology marketing. We have a team of 18 digital marketing specialists who provide expertise in web development, SEO,

content marketing, digital media, pay-per-click, social engagement, and analytics — and we’re all

passionate about what we do.

I F YO U ’ R E S T RU G G L I N G TO C O N N E C T W I T H YO U R AU D I E N C E , W E ’ R E H E R E TO H E L P.

G E T I N TO U C H W I T H U S TO DAY.

1.855.646.8662 (Toll-Free)

[email protected]

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Vancouver, BC, V6B 2W9

i. Shapero, D. ‘The Top Three Challenges Facing MSPs’ | Bradford, C. ‘Top 5 Challenges of Selling Managed Services in 2016’

Rowling, R. ‘Are You an MSP Superhero? Top 5 MSP Trends and Challenges in 2016’ | Cargol, T. ‘Top Ten Challenges for Next Generation Partner Ecosystems’

ii. Zambito, T. ‘What Is a Buyer Persona? Why the Original Definition Still Matters to B2B’

iii. Vaughan, P. ‘How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business [Free Persona Template]’

iv. Accenture, ‘2014 State of B2B Procurement Study: Uncovering the Shifting Landscape in B2B Commerce’

http://mspmentor.net/service-level-agreements/top-three-challenges-facing-msps

http://www.storagecraft.com/blog/selling-managed-services-2016/

http://www.servicecontrol.com/2016/are-you-an-msp-superhero-top-5-msp-trends-and-challenges-in-2016/

http://www.thewhir.com/blog/top-ten-challenges-for-next-generation-partner-ecosystems

http://tonyzambito.com/buyer-persona-original-definition-matters/

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33491/Everything-Marketers-Need-to-Research-Create-Detailed-Buyer-Personas-Template.aspx#sm.00001iw0smje4pdabsk9ovikauo7l

https://www.accenture.com/t20150624T211502__w__/us-en/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Industries_15/Accenture-B2B-Procurement-Study.pdf