As a MSP you might find yourself struggling with lead generation because you won’t have a corporate marketing department to support you by providing quality leads. Also, if you are like most MSPs, then you wouldn’t be having a sales team at your disposal to close those leads. 

Here are some very effective tips that would help you generate and close quality leads yourself:

Web presence: Establish a strong web presence. As an IT service provider, you will have a physical office address, but that shouldn’t stop you from getting a virtual office space. We’re talking about MSP websites here! Having a business website will lend credibility and a touch of professionalism to your MSP business.

Add value: If you want to attract leads make sure you add value to them through your products, services and even the content that you have on the web. Having informative videos or blogs on topics that will be relevant to your prospective customers…such as phishing, malware, or a section with Day Zero Alerts that talk about the latest threat to your lead’s IT systems are great examples of value adding content. Something like these will attract leads to your site, where they will eventually find out more about what you do and perhaps become a customer.

Get information: Get as much information as possible about your prospects. You could have your prospects fill up one line web forms that help you gather information about them. When someone visits your website or blog, you should be tracking their online behavior. There are good marketing automation software programs that allow you to do so. You can later use this insight to position your business offerings in a manner that most appeals to them.

Advertisements on social media and Google: LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Ads work to place your product/services on relevant web search results and web pages. Obviously, it will help you get more leads, but it also helps in increasing your brand’s exposure on the web. To know how to go about AdWords or to get started, click here.

Social media: Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. are a great way to build your brand and promote your business–for FREE! Along the same lines are blogs, newsletters, and YouTube videos. All these avenues are great platforms to showcase your expertise and knowledge of IT support and services and also help you attract leads in the process.

Partners & referrals: It can get a little overwhelming to do it all at once—all alone. That’s when you could use a partner to help you out. You could partner with businesses that complement yours. For example, say, you cover cloud services really well but don’t have the resources or expertise to offer VOIP. There may be someone in your area of business who offers VOIP, but doesn’t cover cloud as extensively as you do. You both could benefit from working together and sharing a pool of leads. Similarly, ask your happy customers to provide you with referrals. Leads through referrals are more likely to convert than the ones you generate at random.

So, even though lead generation can seem like a challenge for the average MSP, you can overcome that effectively if you have the right strategies in place.