MSP lead generation: A Beginner’s Guide

MSP lead generation is a term used to describe the process of bringing as many qualified leads as possible to a Managed Service Provider company. Collecting MSP lead opportunities isn’t just about casting the widest possible net with your marketing efforts. Instead, your focus should be on collecting details from the people most likely to become customers.

What is are MSP Sales Leads?

The term “MSP” stands for “Managed Service Provider”, a specific kind of service provider in the business landscape. An MSP lead is a potential customer for a managed service provider. While the exact definition of an ideal MSP lead will differ for each vendor, there are two primary kinds of qualified leads that MSP lead generation services and strategies focus on:

• Marketing Qualified Leads: Better known as an MQL, these MSP sales leads are people who have been identified as a fit potential prospect for “marketing” your MSP solutions to. These people are deemed relevant to the MSP brand, but they may not have shown a specific interest in the company yet.
• Sales Qualified Leads: Otherwise known as SQL, these leads can be even more valuable in lead generation for MSPs, because they’ve already shown an interest in your company. SQLs may be people who have contacted your company or requested more information about your services in the past.

The main difference between an MQL and SQL is their position in the buyer journey. An MQL is still in the comparison and discovery stage, looking for information about your service. The SQL is likely to be closer to the bottom of the sales funnel.

What is MSP Lead Generation?

Lead generation for MSPs involves learning how to identify leads at different points in the buying cycle and connect with them in a way that can eventually lead to sales. The right MSP lead generation efforts can help you to outshine the competition and get your message in front of the right people as quickly as possible, generating new opportunities for sales.

MSP lead generation can combine both inbound and outbound marketing efforts. With inbound marketing, the focus is on attracting as many potential leads as possible by providing information that draws people to your brand, through tools like blogs and content marketing.

With outbound marketing, you reach out to potential leads to improve your chances of conversions. Outbound MSP lead generation strategies could include cold calls to MQLs or SQLs.

What is an MSP Lead Strategy?

As you might imagine, an MSP lead generation strategy is a specific kind of lead generation effort intended to increase the number of leads you can access. There are lead generation services out there that can offer a range of lead generation efforts, including:

• Website building and content creation (with SEO)
• Email marketing or cold email marketing
• Social media advertising
• Press release and guest post creation
• Cold calling
• Strategic prospecting

How to Improve Lead Generation for MSPs

If you’re struggling to hit your targets for MSP lead generation each month, there are a variety of strategies you can use to potentially collect more sales opportunities. Most leading MSPs will use a combination of inbound and outbound advertising efforts to find leads, such as:

• Building a website: Creating a website focused on generating conversions is one of the best ways to collect inbound MSP leads. You can infuse your website with valuable information about your managed services, with SEO-optimization to help you rank higher on the search engines. Some companies even build landing pages with lead magnets (Special offers designed to convince customers to hand over their contact information).
• Content marketing: Content marketing, in the form of video, blog, or article creation, can help to pull more potential prospects back to your website. Content is a great way to improve your ranking on the search engines and show your expertise to possible customers. A content marketing strategy can also involve sharing content on other people’s websites through guest posts, to help you connect with a wider audience.
• Social media marketing: Social media marketing is an excellent way to find leads and nurture relationships with your target audience. You can utilize social media platforms to answer customer questions, demonstrate your credibility, and even gain reviews from existing customers. Paid advertising is another way to capture the attention of people in your specific target audience with carefully-chosen campaigns.
• Cold calling and emailing: Cold calling and emailing are among the most popular and common tools companies can use to improve their chances of finding new leads. Once you know who your ideal customer is, you can build strategic lists of potential prospects to reach out to. Collecting information from conversations with customers in your CRM system will help you to organize each lead, qualify, and nurture individual opportunities

Remember, as you learn more about your leads and what drives them to your business, you can upgrade your lead generation strategy with your new data.

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