As the new year kicks off with a bang, the marketing world is rapidly changing. Like always, finding a way to pinpoint customers in the saturated world of ads, social media, and SERP requires a fluid, evolving strategy. This article reviews some of the best performing digital marketing tactics for MSPs in 2019. These are the tactics that are driving important key performance indicators (KPIs) and performing well across platforms and segments.
For any B2B player in the marketing industry, LinkedIn is a goldmine. It’s filled with over 40 million key decision makers and 500 million business professionals. So, finding a way to penetrate LinkedIn is a top priority for most B2B-based marketers.
But, 2019 is a year filled with changes in the LinkedIn world. First, the platform has become incredibly saturated in ads, and this minefield of ads has numbed users and decreased ad effectiveness.
There are two ways to combat this challenge:
Focus on Audience Targeting
LinkedIn campaign manager lets you get hyper-granular with your ad targeting. You can use this to segment populations. We recommend playing with Firmographics and paying to directly target the exact people (or audience) that you want. After you nail segmentation, you can start A/B testing ad strategies and adjusting messages. It’s crucial that MSPs segment correctly. Otherwise, you’re throwing money against a wall.
Build Organically
You don’t have to pay for ads to get results on LinkedIn; you can go organic. This means that you’ll likely have to pay for some content and develop a targeting strategy.
Creating high-quality value-added content and sharing it with the people you want to target (via InMail or otherwise) is a great way to bypass paying for ads and directly target the user. To do this, you can create custom content that immediately appeals to those people.
Example: Let’s say your an IT company that specializes in network management. Find the exact names and titles of the people that are capable of making a purchase decision for your product. Then, create a campaign targeting these people to deliver relevant ads (i.e., “are you sick of network downtime?”)
You can also connect with these people and start spreading content to them directly. This content should be valuable and insightful.
Tools that can help:
Of course, SEO is still a critical component of any B2B strategy. Google’s algorithm has undergone many changes of the years, and we’re sitting on a smart, intent-driven search engine that really likes valuable content.
This means that any SEO strategy needs to be content-driven. For MSPs, this means creating a blog, finding the appropriate keywords, and developing a robust content strategy
Example: Cisco provides the best example of this type of strategy. Not only does Cisco rank on pretty much every IT related keyword (Want software-designed networking? Guess who is ranked #1) but, their content isn’t “salesy.” Instead, they focus on adding value to users, which helps build relationships, increase brand awareness, and eventually convert.
Tools that can help:
Landing pages are a staple of the B2B marketing community. But, building a landing page and building a successful landing page are two wildly different things.
Branded, dynamic landing pages are dominating 2019, and for a good reason – they convert. Remember, all of your marketing strategies will end up with your customer on a landing page. They have to be well-design and lead-driven. To do this, you need to incorporate video (can bump conversions by 86%) and unique pages.
Think you only need one or two high-quality landing pages? Think again! Businesses with +40 landing pages convert 12x more than those with 1 – 5. Get scrappy with your landing pages and create dynamic, unique pages.
Of course, you’ll need to use some tools to do this, or else you’ll end up blowing your whole budget on landing pages and end up with no funnel.
Example: CDW has a ton of landing pages. Even better, some use videos and some email gates a white paper or other useful content. This way, even if the user doesn’t want to purchase immediately, they can be added to the pipeline for further email marketing.
Tools that can help:
2019 brings a host of changes to the B2B marketing space. Creating the best possible digital marketing strategies for your MSP requires a customer-centric and brand-centric approach to marketing.
You want to produce value-added content every step of the way. Whether that’s to dominate your social strategy, boost your ranking, or generate more leads on your landing pages, value matters.
Click below to download your road map to marketing success in 2019: