I often meet with CEO's of managed service businesses. From those meetings I have learned a great deal about their business, the way they see themselves, the way they want to be seen by their customers, and the way their prospects see them. The thing that stands out the most to me is how many similarities these businesses have; there is very little differentiation between them. In fact, many use the same content as their competitors; content that is syndicated to 500 similar businesses is useless. Even their websites are templated with the same color schemes (usually blue highlights with a white background). Some expert decided that it was the best color for MSPs so everyone joined in.  Where are the outliers? The masters of the cutting edge of technology? Where are the thought leaders?

As a Managed Service Provider, you take pride in providing your customers with everything they need to run the IT side of their businesses. At the same time, you’re probably eager to grow your own business and build up its revenue. MSPs face the same obstacles to growth, however, as other companies do. Dealing with clients and running your business, as well as perceived budget restrictions, can result in marketing being put on the back burner. It could also simply be that, with all the different options available for marketing your business, you don’t know where to start.

When you are new to digital marketing for MSP's, one of the biggest challenges is knowing what are the best practices and, equally important, what are potentially bad practices. To ensure that your digital marketing strategy takes off on the right foot, here a few tactics that you should definitely avoid.