At TRIdigital, we are always looking for ways to help you grow your business. What better way than to integrate our IT marketing efforts with your PSA? We are currently beta testing an integration of our marketing with both ConnectWise and Autotask. Early testing looks great and we are just waiting for final approval from ConnectWise and Autotask to begin offering this new level of service for your IT marketing campaigns.
Our integration will connect your email marketing results to your ConnectWise or Autotask database, as well as web form submissions made on your website so you can easily track new opportunities for MSP leads.
Email Marketing
When people execute a call to action from an email, ConnectWise and Autotask will automatically tag that person as an opportunity in your contact database. As the people continue to take action on each new email you send out, the contact information in either ConnectWise or Autotask will be updated with notes. You will have a complete history of actions each person has taken, allowing you to narrowly target your leads and engage in more effective sales calls.
Web Form Submissions
When people visit your MSP website and fill out a form to get more information, join your mailing list, or request a consultation – their contact record will be updated in your database for ConnectWise or Autotask. If the person is not already in your prospect list, they will be added, along with notes showing what kind of information the prospect was interested in. You’ll be able to see at a glance if a prospect has filled out more than one form, if they are interested in the Cloud or Managed Services, and tailor your marketing messages directly to their specific interests.
Take Your IT Marketing to the Next Level
We are really excited about this upcoming integration and look forward to announcing the launch date very soon!
Help Us Help You!
This is just our starting point for complete integration with your line of business applications. We want to improve the integration to help you even more, so we’re going to ask you for some feedback and a wishlist from you. Please, let us know what you would like to see in the comments below:
Perseverance pays off. We see it every day in the news, in our own lives, in the lives of others, and especially when it comes to business and MSP Marketing.
Think about the story of Arthur Boorman. He is a man who overcame insane obstacles to reach his goals. At times, it seemed as if he was better off just giving up, but he never did and that’s how businesses need to view their marketing strategy and efforts if they truly care about experiencing true success.
Arthur Boorman was a disabled veteran and was told he would never walk again unassisted after one too many jumps out of a plane as a paratrooper. At 47-years-old he was close to 300 pounds, in chronic pain, and wasn’t sure if his quality of life would ever improve. Arthur never gave up once he began an intense Yoga program with a Yogi who believed in him. It took 10 months, but Arthur lost 140 pounds and could not only walk unassisted again, but he was able to run and exercise regularly without pain.
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If Arthur can stick to a dedicated plan to walk without assistance again, why can’t your business stick to a dedicated MSP Marketing plan long enough to allow it time to achieve the desired results you want?
Because giving up is easy. It’s harder to stick with something when you don’t get the immediate results you hope for because you get impatient because you want the benefits of the end results without putting in the work, or simply following a plan of action that gets you to your goals.
MSP Marketing for your business isn’t a short-term fix for stagnant sales figures or a lack of quality leads coming in. It’s a process that can reinvigorate your staff, because they see the company is doing something to improve revenue and the company’s place in your specific industry, and it can also lift you up above your direct competitors because you have something they don’t – the dedication and perseverance to see a high-end marketing plan through.
With a dedicated marketing team at your side and a marketing strategy that will allow you to reap major rewards if you can stick to a 12-month plan, anything is possible for your business.
Don’t allow impatience, a lack of understanding about the marketing process, or unrealistic expectations shortchange your business. The next time you think about giving up on your MSP Marketing plan, think of Arthur and what he was able to accomplish by dedicating himself to a plan that worked for him and helped him reach his goals.
A successful landing page is meant to attract attention and draw people in for higher conversion rates. Before you ever begin creating your landing page you need to think about what you want your landing page to accomplish. You need to make sure that you get your point across in a way that will get that person to click through. Here are three tips on how to create a successful landing page.
Simplify
Your content should be clear, concise and straight to the point. A cluttered landing page will only deter visitors. When someone lands on your landing page they are looking for specific things – what you have to offer, how it will benefit them and why they need it. Your landing page should be simple, but effective.
Make Headlines and Subheads Stand Out
When you are marketing in the IT world – headings and subheadings like “Flat Rate IT Support,” or “Backup and Disaster Recovery” are boring and robotic. Potential leads will notice catchy and interesting titles that will lead them to read the rest of your content. The headline should be big, bold and make a statement that will make an impact on the person reading it. They say don’t judge a book by the cover, but in the case of IT marketing, people will judge your landing page based on the headlines and subheads.
You Need a Strong Call to Action
For a higher conversion rate and click through rate, you need a strong call to action. “Send” is not a strong call to action. It needs to be creative, but to the point that relays why they need to click. For a backup and disaster recovery landing page, your call to action may say “Let’s Start Planning,” instead of “Submit Form.” The more conversational and catchy, the better. The call to action also needs to be easy to get to, simple to fill out, meaning less than three form fields, and give the person an incentive to click by adding a sense of urgency. Your call to action should include a strong title, a blurb about what the form is for, the form and a button. For more tips on creating a strong call to action check out our blog 3 Tips for Creating Effective Calls to Action!
Can You Think of Any More Tips for a Successful Landing Page? Let us know in the comments below!
There are a ton of companies like yours selling Unified Communications right now, and the number is only increasing. So how do you get more Unified Communications leads? Aggressive marketing strategies, changes to search engine parameters, and media campaigns target every potential customer. With many companies scrapping for the same customers, you need to set your company apart from the rest. Here are some marketing strategies that result in more Unified Communications leads:
1. Tap into every market
Tailor a marketing strategy that addresses the demands and vulnerabilities of every vertical you aim to target. Don’t think the same marketing strategy you use for the healthcare field will also work for law or finance. Create a message that specifically addresses the pain points of the industry you are trying to help.
2. Overcome your prospects’ challenges
You know what your potential clients need to run successful, connected and secure businesses, so why are you not telling them? Don’t wait for the client to come to you – let them know you understand the challenges they face and show them how Unified Communications overcomes those challenges. If you wait too long, another company will beat you to it and sell the business on its smarts and efficiency.
3. Use video marketing to get Unified Communications leads
People want to be educated and they want to do so in a timely matter. A blog is one way to tap into potential leads, but chances are your site and blog will get even more hits with a YouTube channel or the use of videos in your marketing. If there is one thing consumer’s love more than advice, it is free advice. Prepare a short video segment on YouTube that addresses the needs of the business, the affordability of the system, and the efficiency of unified communications. People like visuals and a clear-cut solution to their problems. If a viewer likes what he/she sees, they will share the video, and you could see your video on LinkedIn accounts, Facebook pages, emails, and Twitter feeds.
4. Embrace social media
Don’t just embrace social media, own it. Research trending topics, get involved in discussions, and search key terms on Twitter and Facebook. Look for posts from potential clients that directly or indirectly express a need for your particular services. Social media is not the ideal place to sell business-to-business services, but if you see people discussing business problems on social media that you know you can solve with Unified Communications – don’t miss the opportunity! The key to this strategy is responding quickly and effectively. You are not the only company looking for this client; you just have to be the best at addressing their needs and social media is a platform to start the conversation.
No company is immune to marketing mistakes, especially considering marketing combines psychology, science, art, economics, and an assortment of factors in play – but that doesn’t mean mistakes are unavoidable.
Often times what may seem like an attempt at being edgy or trying to stay ahead of the proverbial curve turns out to be a disaster. It’s important to understand your market, know what matters to your customer base and for the love of God– make sure your marketing campaign can’t be misconstrued as something else.
New Coke
It’s 1985 and Coca-Cola just launched its new, sweeter formula ‘New Coke’. The reason was simple – to take back the younger crowd who preferred Pepsi because it was already sweeter than coke.
The reaction to Coke selling out to become more like Pepsi was swift, as fans of Coke didn’t like the fact that the company had basically destroyed something they loved so the company could make a few extra bucks. ‘New Coke’ was an absolute failure and the company reinstated ‘Coke Classic’ just 77 days later. This new product failure cost Coca-Cola close to $40 million and helped aid rival Pepsi Cola gain a market share advantage at the time.
The lesson here is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Kenneth Cole
Not too long ago, early 2011 actually, fashion behemoth Kenneth Cole sent out a tweet trying to promote their new spring collection. The tweet was sent out from Kenneth Cole himself, which makes this blunder all the more incredible.
At the time of this tweet there was a very violent uprising in Egypt, which ended the three-decade-long presidency of Hosni Mubarak. The tweet was not well received as negative feedback was immediate from the public. Kenneth Cole took the tweet down in response and proceeded to apologize to anyone offended.
The lesson here is humor is a powerful marketing tool, especially on social media, but it isn’t wise to make light of a serious situation where people are dying.
Sony Bets on Betamax
The ‘video format wars’ took place in the late 1970s, with VHS winning more than 70 percent of the initial market share over Betamax before eventually owning the entire market share.
Sony created a superior product in Betamax, which offered slightly better picture quality, but Sony miscalculated what was important to customers when it believed people would pay substantially more money for a Betamax player and less overall capabilities over the VCR and VHS tapes.
VCRs and VHS tapes were cheaper, could record for much longer, and the quality wasn’t that far apart from what Betamax offered.
The lesson here is to understand what the public wants, and whether they’re willing to pay more for a similar product from you before going all in and having it cost you dearly.
If you think your business’ IT slogan doesn’t make a difference to the success of your company…think again. Your slogan says more about your business than you might think.
Ever heard “Just Do It,”“Got Milk?,” or “I’m Lovin’ It?”Of course, you have – and you probably know exactly what business each slogan belongs to. This leads to my first reason on why your slogan matters.
Your IT Slogan Makes Your Business Memorable
Maybe people won’t remember the name of your company, or who the CEO is, or every little detail about what your product is, but they will remember your slogan. It’s important for your slogan to be something that sticks in people’s minds to remind them of your business whenever they hear the slogan or see your logo. In the IT world, it’s difficult to create something catchy and memorable about Cloud Computing, Backup Disaster Recovery, and every other Managed Services technical term, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to come up with a slogan that sounds like a robot wrote it. Be innovative, creative, and think beyond your comfort zone to come up with something that shows who you are as a company that’s memorable.
It Shows Who You Are
Your company’s logo along with its slogan is a chance for you to show your colorful side when it comes to business. It’s a snippet of your company’s personality that invites people to learn more about who you are. Keep it short, snappy, and intriguing so that people recognize it and associate it with your business. The more original your slogan is, the more successful it will be. The IT business world is full of the same terminology used over and over – if you want your business to be successful and stand out, you have to show that you have a creative side.
It Creates Unity
Besides branding and helping convey the message of who you are as a company, slogans create unity when it comes to advertising efforts in different verticals. Using the same slogan in many different advertising channels connects your company together in a way that makes it even more memorable. This will help you make the most of advertising costs. Advertising in the IT industry can be tricky since so many businesses offer the same services and products – keeping that unified flow by using your slogan throughout makes it easier for your business to be noticed.
Can you think of any other reasons why your business’ slogan matters? Let us know in the comments below!
Friends ended over 10 years ago, but we still love it and binge watch it as often as possible…wouldn’t it be nice if your company was that successful? Well, it can be with the right marketing strategy.
Let’s discuss the top 3 marketing lessons I learned from watching Friends.
Lesson #1: Never Cheat
When Ross and Rachel were “on a break,” Ross cheated on her with that dim-sided girl from the copy place. Don’t cheat on good marketing strategies by taking the easy way out. No Ross, even while “on a break” it is not acceptable to cheat – and your business shouldn’t either. Don’t cheat your business out of its success by going cheap on the marketing. Good marketing equates to success…bad marketing or no marketing at all will end up catching up to you later, kinda like how Rachel found out Ross cheated on her and then broke it off completely – don’t let this happen to you with your customers! With the right marketing strategy, you and your customers will have a healthy relationship that makes you both successful.
Lesson #2: Be Innovative
Remember when Joey was writing his speech for Monica and Chandler’s wedding and he basically just kept repeating, “to give and receive, to be receiving and giving?” Well, that not only drove Monica and Chandler crazy, but it made Joey seem like had no idea what he was talking about. When marketing your business or your product, don’t say the same thing in the same way over and over. Be creative – find new ways to tell people who you are, what you do, and how you do it. The greatest gift you can give your customers is not making them listen to your incessant and repetitive marketing mantras. Keep things fresh – this is 2015!
Lesson #3: Keep Up With Trends
Every season Rachel had a new ‘do and she was constantly keeping up with the latest trends and fashions. Your company has got to keep up in order to compete with others in your industry. If you play it safe and never change, how will you ever make your company better? Avoid being boring – especially when it comes to your company’s marketing. With technology changing how marketing works, you’ll want your company to be “in style” and that requires trying new things, just like Rachel did with her hair! Try new things and you just might be surprised – I mean Rachel did land Paolo, didn’t she?
Can you think of anything else Friends has taught you about marketing? Let us know in the comments below!
There is no surefire way to improve your SEO marketing than to simply write quality content. The days of stuffing keywords into bad content and having it rank highly are long gone. Search engines continue to evolve and tweak their search algorithms so black hat SEO tactics don’t work as well as responsible SEO tactics.
According to industry reports, 70 percent of links search users click actually come from SEO marketing efforts. Reports also illustrate how leads generated from SEO have a better return on investment (14.6 percent close rate), overall, than outbound leads (1.7 percent close rate).
Here are three ways in which your business can improve its SEO efforts to reap the rewards of search.
Optimize Your Efforts for Search Engines
This one may seem like a no-brainer, but there are many different ways to rank well on search engines – the easiest way is to ensure your website is submitted to search engines and able to be indexed.
Google is certainly the biggest player on the market as far as SEO and search are concerned, but don’t ignore the other search engines. Yahoo and Bing are slowly taking a bigger piece of Google’s search market through various business dealings and differentiating themselves through clever marketing.
Yahoo is the default search engine for Firefox, which is one of the leading browsers among Internet users, and Google’s deal with Safari comes to an end this year. Both Yahoo and Bing will be competing hard to replace Google as Safari’s default search engine.
Make sure your SEO marketing efforts are not just focused on Google.
Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?
Mobile devices were the cause of nearly 40 percent of organic traffic on the Internet in 2014. With Google’s latest search algorithm update that further focuses on improving the user experience of mobile device users, it is imperative your company website is mobile friendly, thus improving your SEO marketing efforts.
Mobile friendly websites will now rank better on Google and websites that are not mobile-friendly will see their organic search traffic tumble as a result.
Don’t miss out on over a third of the online market by not optimizing your website for mobile devices and SEO best practices related to mobile search.
ROI Matters More Than Keyword Rankings
It can be enormously satisfying seeing keywords you’re using ranking well in search engines, but that doesn’t always mean your SEO campaign is successful. Every single one of your keywords could rank number one in Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. and not drive a single penny back to your company.
Why?
Maybe those keywords are relevant to your industry or company, but too generic to convert anyone.
Perhaps you bid aggressively to own certain keywords because you saw how many people search for them, but those keywords aren’t the best for what you do.
It could be any number of reasons, but the biggest reason why high ranking keywords doesn’t always translate to ROI is the lack of quality and focus.
What good are having keywords that rank highly for you if they don’t convert to anything, or if they’re not specific enough to drive action to your website or services?
Focus on keywords that really hone in on exactly what you do or have to offer. While those keywords may not rank highly or garner hundreds of thousands of searches, it’s the quality that counts and its quality that drives ROI.
Is your company’s blog gaining the traffic you’d hoped for? Are you wondering why some blogs seem to be shared endlessly and yours only receives spam comments from robots? Don’t worry – you’re not alone. Most blogs don’t get the attention they desire. Let’s look at the top 4 reasons blogs fail and how to fix them.
Mistake #1: You’re Being Selfish
If your blog says “me, me, me,” then you’ll be the only person reading it. People don’t care about your products, your services, or, (not to be harsh), you. So what do people actually care about? What do they want to read about in your company’s blog? Solutions to their problems. If you can provide content that focuses on challenges your readers face, your blog will attract much more traffic.
Mistake #2: You’ve made It Difficult to Share
Your blog might be the best one out there, but no one will know about it or read it if you don’t offer readers a way to share the content with their friends and family, whether it’s via email or social media. Include sharing buttons so your blog can gain even more readership.
Mistake #3: You’re Not Engaging People
Ask questions in your blog to generate comments and gain feedback from readers. Spark a conversation – don’t just be another plain blog. Reply to every comment left on your blog and watch how fast you gain loyal followers.
Mistake #4: There’s No Reason to Return
Only 20% of people who read blogs return to the same blog, which means that 80% of readers are first-timers! If you are looking to increase your following, you have to give people a reason to return to your blog. A great way to get people to come back to your blog is to give readers a sneak peak of your next blog.
Every blogger has made these mistakes, but if you use these tips, your blog will gain more readers in no time.
Can you think of any other reasons blogs might fail? Let us know in the comments below!
Let’s face it, we all love Pitch Perfect. Acapella groups that sing, dance, and rap? Count me in. Plus, who doesn’t love Anna Kendrick?
As weird as this may sound, you can learn a lot of marketing tips from the Bellas.
Here are a few of my favorite marketing tips:
IT Marketing Tip #1: Be original
In the beginning, the Bellas were awful…but once they started creating original song mixes, they became an entirely new team. If you’re marketing the same way as everyone else is, what makes you stand out? Be original, be creative, and don’t be afraid to try new things. Just like with the Bellas, it may bring you to a whole new level of success.
Just remember, don’t be a snooze-fest.
In the IT marketing world, few companies are testing the boundaries and trying new things. They’re playing it safe, but YOU shouldn’t. The Bellas made the decision to step out of their comfort zones and it paid off.
There is no reward without risk, so mix things up with your IT marketing to become the company everyone wants to be a part of.
IT Marketing Tip #2: Creatively Collaborate
Aubrey insisted on continuing to sing boring songs over and over…and over. Even when Beca changed things up in the middle of a performance and actually got people to pay attention, Aubrey was still set on singing lame tunes. She refused to collaborate with her team to figure out new, innovative ways to spice up their routines.
But, once she finally started listening to the other Bellas, the team became a phenomenon.
Why?Because collaboration is the key to becoming more creative and bringing life to IT marketing.
When it comes to your IT marketing strategy, you need to listen to every idea and really come up with strategies that aren’t your typical IT marketing strategies – dry and robotic. Be like the Barden Bellas and show em’ what you got! Success is a team effort.
IT Marketing Tip #3: Stay Positive
Giving up is for squares. The Barden Bellas really blew it in the competition, but when they were offered the chance to come back and compete, they got it together and got straight to work. They grew not only as a team but as friends, too. Staying positive will help your team become more successful and ultimately better people. The Bellas came out on top because they knew that this was only a minor speed bump in the road to victory.
The same goes for IT marketing. You will encounter obstacles, but it’s how you bounce back that really matters.
Can you think of any more marketing tips you could learn from the Bellas? Let us know in the comments below!
