Building Your MSP’s Marketing Team Monthly Roundup – Project Management and Content Creation

Building your MSP’s marketing team is no easy feat. That’s why our latest installment of Presh Academy focuses on building your marketing team from the ground up in easy-to-digest step-by-step videos.

Last month, we looked at whether you should build an internal team, work with an external agency or do a little of both. This month, we’re looking at project management essentials and how to create engaging content.

Project Management Essentials

In our third video, our project coordinator Erin Rendek discussed project management essentials. Building a marketing team is a starting point, but as you bring people on board, they need to know what needs to be done and when it needs to be completed.

Organizations waste almost 12% of their project investments in projects due to poor performance. How can marketing teams avoid washing this significant chunk of project spend down the drain? It all starts with solid project management.

Let’s look at the steps of managing a marketing campaign.

1. Set goals and determine requirements. Take a high-level look at your marketing campaign and consider the following questions:

a. What are we trying to achieve with this campaign?

b. What are the ideal end results?

c. When are the hard deadlines?

d. What resources do we need?

2. Break the end results into smaller steps or deliverables. Erin uses the example of a factory making a new car. For rolling out a new car, the smaller deliverables might include:

a. Initial design.

b. Engine

c. Transmission

d. Exterior and frame.

Each step should have a milestone (completion) date.

3. Break each deliverable into smaller tasks. These are the steps that need to be completed for each deliverable. Each of these tasks should have an “owner” who is responsible for completing the tasks. For the car example, the initial design might be broken into smaller tasks:

a. Create a design.

b. Obtain design approval.

c. Create a visual representation.

d. Present the representation to stakeholders.

If this looks like a lot, it is! But it makes a large campaign manageable. Skipping steps or failure to document parts of a process can cause items to fall through the cracks – especially as your team grows. Many marketing firms use project management software such as Wrike or Asana to help break projects down into manageable steps and assign responsibilities.

Creating Engaging Content

In our fourth video, Kate Lake, our content specialist, discusses how to develop engaging content. Kate recommends:

• Identifying your content’s purpose and intended audience. Someone who is thinking about working with an MSP for the first time will have different needs than someone who is deciding between you and a competitor. Tailor your content accordingly.
• Include a call-to-action. Invite your reader to do something, whether it’s read a blog post, download a guide or make an appointment for a consultation.
• Cut filler. Be direct and use active rather than passive language in your content. For example:
• Passive sentence: “Our solutions can be used to increase revenue.”
• Active sentence: “Businesses can use our solutions to increase revenue.”

Not sure if your sentence is passive or active? Try this trick: insert the phrase “by zombies” after the verb. If the resulting phrase makes sense (well… relatively), it’s passive.

For example, “our solutions can be used (by zombies)” works, which tells you it’s passive voice. “Businesses can use our solutions by zombies” doesn’t make sense, which indicates that it’s active.

• Consider SEO. Find a relevant keyword and include that keyword in the title, headline, body and meta description.
• Share! Use social media to distribute your content, and encourage others to share it as well.

Engaging content brings meaningful information to your target customers and demonstrates your company’s knowledge, value and commitment to helping and educating its customers and followers. When ideating content, start by thinking of the problems your audience faces and what solutions you could offer in a blog, infographic, ebook, quiz or other content forms.

Ready to Get Started?

Building your MSP’s marketing team takes diligence. We’re here to support you along the way. For more tips on building your MSP’s marketing team, check out our video series on Presh Academy.