MSP/IT marketing today has evolved into something much more than creating mass advertising flyers/emails and sending them to everyone on your list. MSPs and VARs can no longer survive with a blindfolded approach to marketing. This is because the prospect profiles have changed radically. In today’s internet age, prospects are more informed than ever. They also have a lot of choice when it comes to selecting a MSP or IT vendor. To connect with your customers in such environment, you need to focus on establishing a personal, one-on-one relationship with them. Building this relationship and cementing it over a period of time will enable you to gain an edge over competition. Personalization is an indispensable tool in achieving that goal.

Personalization involves understanding customers, anticipating their needs and positioning your MSP/IT business’s solutions in a manner so as to add value to the customers. The spectrum of personalization is very wide. At the lowest end lies something as simple as sending out emails that address the recipients by their names and further up lie custom landing pages and the ability of the business to anticipate and offer products/services tailored to suit the individual customer needs.

A study conducted by the Aberdeen Group states 87% of retailers believe that personalization will bring about significant changes to their business. 41% of the retailers mentioned that personalization helped their business attain higher levels of customer satisfaction. The study also listed Personalization as the number one strategic action that a business needs to take. The US Banker magazine carried an article in which the chief marketing and innovation officer for AXA Equitable mentioned that the return on investment with respect to dollars spent on personalization was almost 5 times.

Personalization requires three key ingredients to be in place. One—Collection of customer information, Two—Availability of this information in real time, Three—Ability to act upon this information so as to add value to the prospect/customer. Once a business has these three key aspects in place, the only thing left to do is to find a marketing automation platform that will enable a seamless integration of all these three to enhance customer experience.