To start selling cloud services, you find a reliable cloud provider. Perfect!
Next, you look at your market and start introducing your cloud services…
This is where many MSPs go wrong.
As an MSP, you always want your clients to look to you as their preferred choice for cloud services. There are a lot of options out there, so it’s essential to use a different approach than your competitors. Being innovative, planning, and continually communicating with your clients and prospects is a trait that every successful MSP has.
However, getting the word out to the right audience is sometimes unclear.
Promoting your cloud services is quite similar to promoting tools within your MSP when you get down to it. We’ve put together three solid steps that can be used to jumpstart your cloud promotion, as well as specific messaging strategies that can be used for different types of clients.
What are you waiting for? Let’s take your cloud promotion to the next level and make your messaging effortless.
Step 1 – Target existing clients
Walk into any client’s office, and we bet you could quickly strike up a conversation about cloud services. What’s more, we bet that they’d listen!
However, with a business that’s not a client, the cloud services discussion is hard to start. We’ve found that targeting existing clients with cloud services has a much higher success rate since you’ve already built a foundation of trust with their business. Cloud can be a big move for some businesses, so a pre-established relationship goes a long way in communicating its value.
After you have narrowed down the list of existing clients that you would like to target, it’s time to move to step 2.
Step 2 – Divide your audience into groups
Now that you have your audience, its time to create three groups. These three groups are as follows: Eager clients, Hand Holding clients, and Distant clients.
- Eager clients display forward-thinking ideals. They want to know all about your cloud services and what is next for their business and industry.
- Hand Holding clients are more uncertain. They are still interested, but they require solid and directed proof to make a decision.
- Distant clients lack any interest in cloud. Connecting with them is difficult beyond the services you already provide for them.
You now have your groups, so let’s move onto step 3 and create our messages.
Step 3 – Apply your messaging strategies by group
With each group, you will approach them with a different message. Here are the strategies we recommend to target each group of existing clients:
- Eager clients – Compile all the information you can gather with help from a cloud provider, and then present it with the goal of showing how cloud gives them a competitive advantage.
- Hand holding clients – Connect these clients with some of your cloud services clients to break down their barrier of doubt. This social proof will open the door for more discussion.
- Distant clients – These clients often only see you as a service provider and not a cloud service solution provider. As such, your message must begin with asking targeted questions. Doing this allows you to uncover the level of their interest quickly: if there is still no apparent interest, focus on targeting the first two groups.
Using this three-step strategy, you can target your cloud services more intentionally and promote in a way that fosters growth. Want to continue the conversation or have any questions? Contact us and let’s continue to make your cloud strategy as solid as it can be.