If you’re a  managed services provider, then you know driving new leads can be challenging.  However,  you need to find customers so you can sell your services. Those customers will come from your lead sources. But where are these sources and once you find them how do you utilize them for leads? Then how do you know which of them should be pursued and how do you nurture them until they become willing to purchase? These are a lot of questions to answer and we will answer them for you in later blogs, but first you need to do a couple of things.

• Choose an Industry You Wish to Serve. Before you start searching for leads, you need to know which industry you will choose to serve. Is it manufacturing, retail or service based? In this kind of MSP marketing you will have same general approach for all clients in one industry. For example: if you apply one marketing method for a manufacturer of frozen pizza, you can apply same for manufacturer of frozen food lines.
• Choose a Vertical. Some MSPs may want to specialize in a particular segment of an industry. Within the broad services sectors there are businesses that serve only one segment of needs. For example: CPAs, realtors, lawyers, doctors, etc. These businesses are known as verticals. You may want to provide your services to only CPAs or lawyers or doctors. Some MSPs choose this approach and become specialists in their chosen vertical so they can be better than their competition in that one field. It avoids the “jack of all trades and master of none” problem.

Once you have selected an industry and a vertical you can start the process of searching for leads.

Lead Sources

1. Social Media. The Internet is a great source of leads, but you have to know where to look for them. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn have hundreds of millions of members. There are groups and categories of those members that represent every industry. Learn to connect with those groups that are service-specific. A Sales Enablement software platform provides excellent tools that can help you use these lead sources.
2. Websites. Your website can become an excellent source of leads for you. But it has to be properly customized with Search Engine Optimization. Your potential customers may be looking for your services, but they have to be able to find your website first.
3. Tradeshows. Find out about the ongoing trade activities in your area. Sign up for tradeshows. They are good for B2B marketing.
4. Direct mailing.Send brochures or postcards in mail to the businesses of your choice.
5. Telemarketing. Call the potential customers.
6. Lists of leads. Buy the leads from direct marketing companies.
7. Emails. Conduct email campaigns. This is another area where sales enablement tools can make email campaigns easier and more effective, especially if you are new to this marketing platform.
8. Network. Network with business associations (local Bar Associations, Realtors’ groups, etc.) that are related to your target vertical market. These are good for exchanging business information.

Now you know some potential sources of leads. Use these sources wisely. There are techniques available to nurture these leads to convert them into sales. Make the best of those techniques. These techniques will allow you to separate them into hot and cold leads. By the process of additional nurturing you can further divide them into following groups.

• MQLs. Marketing qualified leads
• SQLs. Sales qualified leads
• SRLs. Sales ready leads

We’ll talk about these categories in a later post. But for now, start out considering the idea of targeting a specific vertical. By developing a deep, market–specific expertise, you will build prospect’s trust in your organization and trust is a key component in closing sales..