Your MSP’s marketing should feel repetitive to you but fresh to the people seeing it… here’s how that works. Also this week, what margins should you aim for and how to increase them, and you can be an influencer in your marketplace without taking photos of your dinner.

Welcome to Episode 338 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green, powered by the MSP Marketing Edge.

Why your marketing should feel repetitive to you, and fresh for prospects

Your MSP’s marketing should feel repetitive to you, but fresh to the people seeing it. And I know that sounds like a kind of a strange goal at first, because when something feels repetitive, most of us assume we’re doing something wrong. We assume we should mix it up and try new things and be more creative. But actually, when it comes to marketing your MSP, the opposite is true.

Now, I’m a huge fan of marketing systems. And by that, I mean a simple set of activities that you do on a regular basis. Small tasks, repeated daily or weekly. Things like publishing a blog or recording a podcast, posting on LinkedIn, emailing your list, putting out videos. None of these things are individually spectacular, but they have a power, which comes from doing all of them consistently every day and every week.

Now here’s the interesting bit, if you run a proper marketing system for your MSP it will eventually start to feel boring to you.

I’m recording this podcast for the 338th time. So every week since November 2019 I’ve sat down, decided what I want to talk about, written myself a script, and then recorded it. And obviously I’ve had holidays and vacations along the way, but in that instance, I just do two podcasts in a week so I never get behind.

It is a hamster wheel, I will tell you. And writing the script is not a thrilling creative adventure every week, I’ll be honest. It’s a job, it’s a task in the system. And of course I still enjoy it, but I have to sit down, I have to write it, I have to record it. My team, I’m sure it’s as much a hamster wheel for them. They have to edit it. They have to do all the colour corrections and the promotions and all of the stuff like that. It’s all just a whole series of systemised tasks. And I do it and my team, which is James and Simon and Laura, they do it as well because it’s an important part of our business’ presence out there.

And the same thing happens with your MSP’s marketing. If you’re doing it properly, there’s going to be a rhythm to it. You’re doing the same types of content every day or every week, the same channels, the same cadence week, after week, after week. And after a while, you might start thinking, “Oh my goodness, am I just repeating myself here? Am I just saying the same things again and again?” And the answer is probably yes. And that’s a good sign because here’s the thing that most MSP owners forget. You see your marketing every day… your prospects do not see it every day. You’re inside the system, they’re only catching glimpses of what you put out.

So if you do think about it from their point of view, a prospect might see one LinkedIn post from you this month, or maybe they read one blog on your website or they hear an episode of your podcast if you do that because someone recommended it to them. They are seeing a tiny, tiny slice of what you produce. Meanwhile, you’re seeing everything… every post, every email, every article, every video. So of course, to you it feels repetitive because you’re experiencing the whole system, but your prospects are not. And even if they do see your content more than once, it’s usually spread out to them over time. So they might see something today and then they might not see anything from you for another two weeks. And then by the time they see the next thing, the first one has already kind of faded from their memory.