Introduction
Almost every managed service provider (MSP) we've spoken to has, at some point, invested in marketing—only to be disappointed by poor results and little to no return. If you're reading this, chances are that experience feels all too familiar.
This creates a frustrating dilemma: MSPs rely heavily on repeat referrals to sustain their business, but they know that to grow they need a reliable lead generation strategy. Unfortunately, most traditional tactics haven’t delivered.
That’s why we put together a comprehensive guide designed to help MSPs generate qualified leads in under 30 days—using methods that actually work.
The foundation to our approach is Account-Based Marketing (ABM). Account-based marketing is a strategic method of lead generation that prioritizes targeting high-value accounts with highly personalized campaigns.
Instead of casting a wide net, ABM zeroes in on the right prospects, aligning your solutions with their specific pain points and needs. For MSPs looking to land larger, long-term contracts, ABM can be a game-changer.
This guide will explore how MSPs can leverage account-based marketing (ABM) to generate leads, differentiate ABM from traditional marketing, and build a successful ABM strategy.
Traditional marketing casts a wide net to attract as many leads as possible, hoping a portion of them will convert. ABM flips that model. Instead of starting with a broad audience and narrowing it down, ABM begins with a small, predefined list of high-value accounts and focuses on deeply engaging them.
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Traditional Marketing |
Account-Based Marketing |
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Targets a broad audience |
Targets specific high-value accounts |
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Focuses on generating many leads |
Focuses on closing deals with key accounts |
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Campaigns are general |
Campaigns are highly personalized |
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Disjointed marketing and sales teams |
Unified marketing and sales teams |
To start, focus on selecting companies that have a clear pain point your business is uniquely positioned to solve. Prioritize accounts where you've already seen success—look at where you have the most traction in terms of revenue size and customer count. This will help you target similar accounts that are more likely to convert.
For companies pursuing account-based marketing (ABM), sales and marketing alignment is crucial for identifying key accounts and delivering personalized messaging that drives results. While both teams share the common goal of winning high-value accounts, each plays a distinct role in the process.
The sales team leverages industry expertise, personal relationships, and direct conversations to identify and research target accounts. Sales professionals maintain direct engagement with decision-makers, using their insights to shape account strategies and ensure ongoing value delivery. They also collaborate with marketing to confirm that all content and outreach efforts address the specific challenges and needs of target accounts.
Meanwhile, the marketing team uses data-driven insights from customer behavior analytics, industry trends, and CRM data to uncover potential high-value accounts. Marketers are responsible for developing account-specific content—such as case studies, whitepapers, and personalized email campaigns—and executing coordinated digital marketing campaigns across channels like email, social media, and targeted ads. They nurture leads through consistent, relevant messaging tailored to each account.
Both teams continuously monitor and report on key metrics. Sales tracks conversion rates and pipeline growth, while marketing measures engagement, campaign performance, and content interaction. By sharing insights and feedback, sales and marketing can refine their strategies and maximize account engagement and conversion.
By combining the strengths of both sales and marketing, organizations can more effectively target, engage, and convert their most valuable accounts through highly coordinated and personalized account-based marketing strategies.
Account engagement: Track interactions like website visits, content downloads, and event participation from targeted accounts.
Pipeline velocity: Measure how quickly target accounts move through the sales funnel compared to non-targeted accounts.
Conversion rate: Monitor the percentage of targeted accounts converting into leads, opportunities, and customers.
Average deal size: Compare the average value of deals closed with ABM-targeted accounts vs. non-targeted accounts.
Account retention and expansion: Track retention rates and revenue growth (upsells or cross-sells) from targeted accounts.
Revenue attribution: Measure the total revenue generated from ABM-targeted accounts and the ROI of ABM campaigns.
Engagement of key decision-makers: Monitor interactions from decision-makers within target accounts, such as email responses or meeting bookings.
An ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) represents the "perfect" customer for your IT Managed Service Provider (MSP)—those who are most likely to benefit from your services and provide long-term value. For example, an ICP for an IT MSP might be mid-sized financial services firms with 50-200 employees, a need for network security, and limited internal IT resources, making them highly reliant on outsourced IT management.
Buyer personas go a step further, representing key decision-makers or influencers within the target accounts. Personas include details such as demographics, challenges, pain points, and goals.
For example, in the case of an IT MSP, one key persona might be the IT Director at a mid-sized financial services firm. This persona's primary challenges could include managing network security, ensuring compliance with industry regulations, and keeping IT systems running smoothly despite limited internal resources. Their goals would likely focus on improving system uptime, reducing security risks, and finding cost-effective solutions for IT management.
Another persona could be the CFO at the same firm, whose primary concern is cost control and minimizing risks that could lead to expensive downtime or data breaches. This persona would focus on ensuring the IT investments deliver a strong ROI and align with the company's financial goals.
By understanding these personas, your MSP can tailor its messaging to address the specific pain points and objectives of each decision-maker, increasing the likelihood of successful engagement.
Tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or market intelligence platforms like ZoomInfo to gather data on target accounts and personas.
Personalized content is crucial in ABM because it directly addresses the specific needs and challenges of each target account, making your message highly relevant and engaging. Think of it as crafting a content strategy designed to genuinely help your audience. The content you deliver should be highly actionable, providing insights that make their jobs easier or solve key problems. Over time, this thoughtful approach builds trust between your brand and the target audience, as they come to see you as a partner invested in their success.
Customization within your ABM campaign should go beyond just content—it must also include personalized messaging. Every marketing email, sales outreach, phone call, and meeting should be specifically tailored to the unique needs of the account and the industry you’re targeting. This level of personalization shows a deep understanding of the account, making your communication more relevant and impactful.
This playbook provides a step-by-step framework for running a successful ABM strategy that leverages high-quality content, LinkedIn ads, and a well-coordinated outreach strategy to engage high-value accounts. Follow this multi-channel approach to ensure you deliver value and create consistent touchpoints with your target audience.
Focus on selecting an industry niche that has a clear pain point your business is uniquely positioned to solve. Prioritize accounts where you've already seen success—look at where you have the most traction in terms of revenue and customer count. This will help you target similar accounts that are more likely to convert.
Define the industry niche using NAICS codes, company size, location, number of members in the IT department, and other relevant criteria. The more specific you can get within an industry niche, the better. As a general rule of thumb, an industry niche should have no fewer than 100 accounts.
Prioritize accounts where you've already seen success—look at where you have the most traction in terms of revenue size and customer count.
1. Focus on the pain
Focus on selecting companies that are looking to solve a big pain point that your business is uniquely positioned to solve.
2. Competition
Consider the areas where you can outperform your competition. Match these features and benefits to the industry niche that will find them most valuable.
3 Ask your base
Your customers know who could benefit from your offering—ask them where they see the most value.
Plug the criteria defined previously into ZoomInfo, Sales Navigator, or other data intelligence platforms to create a list of accounts. Ideally, the list would be between 25 and 100 accounts. Once a list of accounts has been identified and pulled, research each account individually.
Check each account’s website to ensure they fit within your industry niche and are still in business. Research news to see if any recent events occurred that could act as a buying signal for your offering.
Using the vetted list of accounts, find 5 - 10 contacts for each account that cover the full buying committee. Use CRM data and expertise from sales to define the function and seniority for each committee member.
1. Acquisitions
When a company undergoes an acquisition, it often faces new priorities and integration challenges, creating opportunities for solutions that support a smooth transition and may indicate a need for additional services or increased budgets.
2. Recent hires
New leadership or key hires, especially in decision-making roles, may indicate changes in strategy, business goals, or upcoming projects, presenting an opportunity to engage with fresh perspectives and priorities.
3. Changes in offerings
When a company expands or shifts its product or service offerings, they often require new systems, technologies, and people to effectively reach their updated goals, making them open to innovative solutions.
Create a matrix defining the primary pain experienced within your industry niche for each member of the buying committee paired with a unique selling point (USP) describing how your offering addresses the specific pain. Finally, reference a resource that could be used to expound on this pain/solution pairing.
Leverage this matrix to develop all 1-to-1 and 1-to-many messaging. Create a list of resources that need to be developed and prioritize based on their usefulness in other industry niches.
Effective account based marketing requires sales and marketing to work together in targeting, nurturing, and converting prospects. The basic engine to ABM is made of two parts: attract and nurture. The outcome of these two components is conversion.
The attract portion of the engine uses various forms of 1-to-1 communication sent from the sales rep to the prospect. Marketing supports these activities by writing and automating these steps as well as by providing targeted “air-support” through LinkedIn Ads.
In 1-to-1 communication, it is important to focus on quality touches across multiple channels. As a general rule of thumb, a prospect should receive 10 - 14 touches from your brand. In order to ensure the outreach experience is positive for the prospect, tailor all communication for each specific buying persona.
Focus on providing value to your prospects with low commitment actions such as requesting to share a case study or a webinar invite.
LinkedIn Ads offer highly specific audience targeting, even down to individual users, but this precision comes at a premium. That’s why it’s crucial to employ accurate targeting and a multi-stage funnel strategy. Instead of directly asking users to book a meeting, share valuable resources like use cases or ultimate guides that provide immediate benefits in exchange for a contacts information.
The nurture portion of the engine predominately uses 1-to-many communication such as organic and paid social media and email marketing though 1-to-1 communication can be used to drip-nurture contacts that are currently engaged by sales.
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a powerful strategy for MSP lead generation. However, its success hinges on the seamless activation of multiple channels, closely coordinated between sales and marketing teams.
Just as businesses often benefit from outsourcing their IT needs to a specialized service provider, IT service providers themselves can gain by outsourcing their marketing efforts to an expert partner, managing everything from strategy to execution.
If your business needs help or has questions on how to grow past a repeat-referral model please drop us a line.