Does Telemarketing Work for MSPs?

As a Managed Service Provider (MSP), you’re undoubtedly adept at managing your clients’ IT estate; whether assisting with a software rollout, maintaining their cyber security or migrating their network to the cloud, you’re a subject matter expert and on top of your game.

However, when it comes to lead generation, it’s not a core competence for most MSPs, so likely to be a challenging or frustrating part of trying to grow your business.

Lead Generation is Challenging for many MSPs

There are 10,000s of businesses that engage a new MSP each year; from rapidly scaling start-ups, to businesses that change MSP as they want more agile or proactive support.

Many MSPs have attempted digital or inbound marketing to try to generate leads but have been disappointed with the results. Marketers often talk about engagement and awareness, but if this doesn’t translate to leads, how much value is this marketing spend adding?

It’s perhaps no great surprise that inbound marketing isn’t very effective for MSP, as it’s hard to create emotion without human interaction.

To buyers, most MSPs look the same from the outside. And your digital marketing won’t differentiate you unless you can get the prospect’s full attention.

Not convinced? Think of the last 3 customers you won. Did they choose you because the services you provide or technology you deploy were materially different to the other MSPs who also pitched for their business? Or was it because they believed that you really understood their business and they could trust you to deliver? It was almost certainly because they bought into you and your team.

Why Telemarketing works for MSPs

Telemarketing gives your business an identity and a personality.

In most B2B services, there are numerous capable suppliers, who, to your prospects, look like they’re providing a similar service.

And this is the salient point about how MSPs should approach lead generation, and why telemarketing is a highly effective lead generation channel.

Telemarketing has the unique ability to spark a conversation, to engage prospects in a two-conversation, to uncover their problems or frustrations and demonstrate empathy.

A good telemarketer won’t open the call by reeling off a long list of the services you provide.

The objective of a telemarketing call isn’t to sell. It’s to identify potential opportunities and to arrange a discovery call or meeting with the prospect.

They’ll create emotion with the prospect, discuss the problems you help overcome, and position your business as a credible solution worth having a more detailed conversation with.

Should you use a professional B2B Telemarketing Agency?

Having recognised that telemarketing can generate sales leads for your business, the next step is to decide whether to try to develop an in-house telemarketing function or whether to use a specialist B2B telemarketing agency.

A quick checklist of what’s you’ll need to develop a best-in-class telemarketing function:

A telemarketer with experience generating leads for MSPs

Hiring talent isn’t easy. It takes time and costs money, and even when you find the right person to join your team, there’s still a significant investment needed to onboard them.

Beanstalk’s experience is also that most of our clients initially want to `try telemarketing` for 3-6 months.

Suppose you’re trying to recruit a top-tier telemarketer. How attractive is the role you’re trying to recruit them into once they realise you’re only committed to trying telemarketing for a few months?

The likely outcome is that you’ll end up hiring someone that needs a job, and you’re their best available option at the time. Hardly a formula for successful recruitment.

Well targeted prospect data

If you don’t already have a prospect list, as a minimum, you’ll need to define your ideal customer profile by size, location and type of company and source data that contains the names of the likely decision makers at these businesses.

Telemarketing agencies can access data that you may find difficult to source directly.

Systems and Technology

An easy one for every MSP, right?! You’ll need a CRM, a way of tracking activity levels and call outcomes, and reporting that allows you to analyse the telemarketing.

Management of the Campaign

Great telemarketing does not happen by accident or on its own. You’ll need to encourage and motivate your telemarketer daily, provide feedback and coach them on telemarketing techniques.

So, you’ll need the skills to develop your telemarketing, the dedication to commit the required time to drive the telemarketing performance, and to be objective with your analysis, which can be challenging when it’s your baby you’re promoting.

And as an MSP, is your office environment conducive to your telemarketer making calls? Telemarketing can be a lonely job, particularly if you’re making cold calls surrounded by IT professionals.

Compare this to Beanstalk, which has been recognised as a Great Place to Work, where we have a motivating environment for our telemarketers to perform from, and the support of a great team.

A fully managed, B2B Telemarketing and Lead Generation Service

Beanstalk is a B2B telemarketing agency that delivers high-performance sales campaigns. Since 2009 we’ve driven sales growth for 100s of technology, MSPs and SasS business.

We provide MSPs with a fully managed B2B Telemarketing service, which includes:

• A nominated telemarketer with technology experience working on your account
• Campaign data built around your ideal customer profile
• A full technology stack, including prospect research tools to help our telemarketers reach Decision Makers
• Email marketing campaigns which generate inbound leads
• Campaign reporting and analysis
• Proactive Account Management
• Options for a full or part time telemarketer dedicated to your account

Our service allows you to concentrate on what you do best whilst providing you with a consistent and reliable way of generating new business leads that fuel your sales growth.

If you’re an MSP and would like to learn more about how we can drive your business growth, send us a message, we’d love to hear from you!