What's your RoI for MSP Marketing?

How much should you spend, and for how long? The question every MSP wants to be answered!

Along with, how do I generate leads for my business? 

Welcome back to another episode of MSP 101 Marketing Pillars in this MSP 101 Marketing Video Series, always a fun one!

Today I wanted to delve into the topic of RoI, and specifically how long it takes for you to get an RoI.

If you have no clue who I am, then hey, my name is Pete and I help MSPs and IT Business Owners to be more productive, grow their business, and live a happier, healthier life.

To start off, I want to say that there are 2 types of marketing. Actually, there are more, but for the purpose of this post, we’ve got 2.

There’s direct lead and results in generation marketing, and there’s brand awareness marketing.

You should have totally different expectations for the RoI that both of these can bring in for your business.

The most common marketing that MSPs and businesses in general do, is the first type, the direct results method. Throw some money at Google Adwords, get people to click, sign up, and become a customer.

Throw some money at a direct mail campaign. Mass mail hundreds or thousands of local businesses, and perhaps 1% of those businesses you contact, will enquire, and then perhaps 50% of that original 1%, will actually buy from you. Now those stats aren’t accurate, because they’re different from business to business, but you get the picture.

This is typically the first place people go. It’s easy because anyone can sign up for Google Ads and if you get it right, you can turn a profit fairly quickly. But that’s only IF you get it right.

I know firsthand that it’s very easy to spend money on Google Ads, month after month, thousands of pounds, just waiting, hoping that one sale could pay for all of it.

Hands up if you’re reading now, those of you who are signed up to BNI, but are yet to actually break even on the BNI membership and breakfast fees, but STILL hold on, just in case that one comes through that’s going to pay for it all!

Now, even though these are relatively quick turnaround - in terms of getting an RoI, I would still set your expectations that you are going to invest into whatever marketing funnel it is, Google Ads, Direct Mail, Email campaigns, for a minimum of 3 months, possibly even 6 months.

Because you still need time to learn, tweak, adjust and get the campaign delivering results.

The second type of marketing is Brand Awareness. I LOVE this type of marketing.

Because...

Brand Awareness, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful types of marketing BUT it has one of the longest RoI. 

Brand campaigns are all about getting your name out there, showing people how good you are, helping people, fixing their problems, answering their questions - but because it’s not a direct advert to ‘come buy from me’, the sales cycle can be much greater.

In my own experience, you should be setting expectations at a minimum, to 6 - 12 months out.

So that is you, committing to 6-12 months of brand marketing, with zero expectation of getting a return.

In my experience, and if you commit to this properly, things do happen sooner than that.

But, as an example - Someone contacted me and I paraphrase here “I’ve been following your content for the last year. I wasn’t ready to buy then, but I’m ready to buy now. Where do I sign up?”

That is the magic about brand marketing because, after time, all of the collateral that you build does start providing an RoI.

So what does all of this mean and why should you care?

I’m writing this post because I constantly meet people who ask me “Pete, I’ve got £2k to spend per month, what do I spend it on?” I tell those people that if they really do have £2k per month to spend, then they should be willing to commit up to £12k, so £2k multiplied by 6 months, on whatever service or marketing campaigns they commit to, otherwise you are simply wasting your money, and you’ll come away thinking it was a waste that delivered no results. 

The key thing here, across every aspect of marketing that I’ve seen, from B2B, B2C, IT Businesses, Marketing Companies, Legal firms, Accountancy firms - is Consistency.

Those who stick with it, and stay consistent. Win.

So that’s my rant for this week's MSP 101 Marketing Pillar post, and to answer the question that I opened with, how long does it take to get an RoI from your marketing?

A lot longer than you might think.

Also - please go and check out this video where I talk about Influencer Marketing. You could literally be missing out on one of the biggest marketing opportunities in the MSP Space right now.

🎥 MSP Valuation Craziness...: https://youtu.be/egzjJ4HZgg4 

🎥 MSP 101 Marketing Pillar Series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

So thanks for reading, and I’ll see you there.