We get it—managed service providers (MSPs) don’t have time for marketing. Your average business day is mostly spent monitoring IT services and supporting clients, both virtually and on site. You communicate your value through your product offerings and service excellence, not through your social media accounts or email newsletters.
But did you know that Sherweb actually supplies its partners with ready-to-use marketing materials and sales assets?
We know marketing is a major pain point for solution providers. According to Datto’s 2019 State of the MSP Report, 44% of MSPs cite sales and marketing as one of their top business challenges.
Learn more about the benefits of becoming a Sherweb partner
That’s why Sherweb provides tons of white-label and co-branded resources that partners can use to grow brand awareness, build customer relationships, and ultimately increase sales—all without weighing down schedules.
Why is marketing important for MSPs?
About 80% of professionals surveyed by Spiceworks said they expect their marketing budgets to increase or remain steady in 2019; IT providers are definitely taking notice of the important role that marketing plays in business growth and success.
Why? Because it works!
Regardless of the sector or product being sold, consumers are much more likely to purchase from companies they’re familiar with. Marketing serves as the vehicle for establishing that familiarity.
Indeed, brand awareness is one major reason why marketing is so important for MSPs (and businesses in general). In highly competitive markets, your branding is what sets you apart. It’s how you communicate your business’s unique value proposition (UVP) to prospects, and convince them that working with you will yield better results than whatever your competitors have to offer.
Marketing is also important for MSPs in building and maintaining relationships with both potential and existing customers. Sure, having prospects know that your business exists is great. But once a basic level of awareness has been established, it’s crucial to build on that relationship to convert leads to customers. Marketing materials such as blogs, webinars, and infographics help accomplish this.
Finally, marketing is important for MSPs because it ultimately helps to drive sales. The process of increasing brand awareness and building customer relationships is typically carried out with this goal in mind. Make yourself known to prospects, build rapport with them by sharing valuable content, and then convert leads into sales by reaffirming your value through stellar product offerings. Wash, rinse, repeat!
But while all this might make sense to an MSP, it doesn’t mean that you suddenly have time in your day to make it all happen. That’s where we come in.
Leverage Sherweb for marketing collateral
Sherweb cares about the success of its partners. The way we see it, your success is our success. We want to help partners acquire new customers, meet targets, and grow their business. One way we work to accomplish this by supplying partners with pre-prepared marketing materials to help promote product offerings, increase brand awareness, and facilitate sales.
Here’s an overview of the resources we provide.
Partner toolbox: A central knowledge repository, Sherweb’s partner toolbox has hundreds of items that assist with product knowledge, sales, and marketing. These include pitch decks, product sheets, sales guides, email and presentation templates, campaigns-in-a-box, assessment tools, and best-practice resources.
Qorus content hub: Qorus collects marketing and sales assets from across the Microsoft Partner Network and embeds it within Microsoft 365 for participating partners to use. Users can search for, share, and customize a wide variety of resources such as presentations and product guides right from the Office apps they use most, like Word or Outlook.
Training opportunities: Partners can engage in self-education opportunities or tailored training with a Sherweb representative, including general online training, webinars, and one-on-one sessions on specific topics to meet partner needs.
PartnerOn: Participating partners receive shareable social media content each week, transforming them into expert social sellers without having to draft anything in house.
Marketing Program: Sherweb’s Marketing Program provides partners with a different approach from what’s offered by competing vendors. We provide complete marketing campaigns with assets, promotional banners and a companion guide with copy for email nurtures, social posts, social ads and much more. Most of the campaigns available are full-funnel, multi-touch campaigns designed to bring you more leads. You also receive expert guidance with a dedicated program lead available to help you put your campaigns motion with the marketing platform of your choice. No need to use yet another platform you don’t know or need—you have the decision power. Watch this webinar to learn more.
Tap into your benefit levels and get expert help for your business
Our team is passionate and cares deeply about our partners’ business. That’s why we developed our partner benefit levels and guide. You simply can’t grow your business without long-term planning, SMART goals and an awareness of what opportunities are out there. At Sherweb, we make the process easier for you, because we know MSPs often wear many hats. We often see small teams of strategic leaders struggling to get everything done. That’s why we’re here to assist with business strategy initiatives! Benefits that Sherweb partners can access include:
Account management: Based on your current revenue or growth potential with Sherweb, you’ll be assigned a dedicated account management team to assess your needs and help you set business objectives through strategic account planning sessions. They’ll advise you about the best solutions and opportunities for your business and ensure you’re maximizing your partnership with Sherweb. By engaging with your team, you’ll be able to see if you qualify for additional services and programs. It all starts with the strategic planning!
MPN consultation services: Need help navigating Microsoft’s complex ecosystem? Our experts can tell you everything you need to know about benefitting from Microsoft’s financial incentives, competencies, internal use rights (IUR) and programs.
Marketing development funds (MDF): Eligible partners can use these funds to create local awareness about their brand, generate leads and sell managed services to new end customers. The primary objectives of the MDF program are to help partners acquire new customers, upsell to their current client base and gain speed with their growth.
Sales performance incentive fund (SPIF): Like MDF, SPIF is geared toward helping your business grow, but focuses on incentives rather than funding marketing initiatives. Motivate your sales reps to sell new cloud solutions by providing them with extra financial incentives. These funds are available to eligible partners who took part in a strategic account planning session with their account management team.
Marketing consultation services: Eligible partners can meet with one of Sherweb’s marketing experts to review their go-to-market strategy, brand and unique value proposition, initiatives or materials. The team will provide recommendations to ensure you’re ready to position yourself, attract new potential clients and engage customers.
Lead generation program: Eligible and certified partners can receive end-customer leads with an interest in both Sherweb’s cloud services and partners’ managed services.
Even more ways Sherweb helps MSPs with marketing
Sherweb frequently publishes educational blog articles on MSPs’ biggest marketing struggles. The subjects tackled come straight from our partners’ questions during marketing consultations. We create this content to address partners’ issues and provide the same help at scale. These bite-size tips can help you get a hold on your own marketing and what works for MSPs.
In addition to offering marketing materials that can be used right away, Sherweb also helps partners finesse their marketing strategies by saving them time and money in other key areas.
Partner portal: Sherweb is a one-stop shop for cloud solutions providers, and the partner portal is where products, licenses, clients, integrations, and more are managed. Add new offerings to your portfolio, provision additional licenses with ease, automate your billing, and manage clients, all from one central location.
PSA integrations: Accessible from within the partner portal, Sherweb’s provided public services automation (PSA) tools help you simplify day-to-day tasks, save time, and sell more. Automate critical functions such as billing and proration to free up more time for marketing activities.
Valet services: Not every MSP has the capacity to offer around-the-clock support. Onboarding and migrating new clients also takes up time that MSPs would prefer to spend on other areas such as prospecting and sales. Sherweb offers clients white-label services such as support, migration, and pre-sales support to help them reclaim valuable work hours that can be used for growing their business.
Partner with Sherweb to jump-start your marketing strategy
All of the resources mentioned above are offered to Sherweb partners at no cost. Our goal is to enable partners to become marketing masters not only by providing tools and assets to bolster marketing efforts but also by saving time and money in other key business areas, such as support and onboarding.
Interested in learning more about Sherweb’s partner network and how it can help your business be more successful? Check out our Partner Guide, or sign up now to get started on your journey to marketing mastery.
