If your business is like many other MSPs, chances are you’re probably tired of running the same old marketing content.
Backup! Security! Tips! It’s time to change things up and create content different from what other MSPs are promoting.
We suggest you start with marketing your preferred print vendor to clients. It's a fresh way to connect with your client base that offers enormous value to them.
Referring clients to a preferred print vendor also frees up your service department resources, enhances your support, and improves your company’s bottom line.
The value of collaborating with a managed print services provider is clear. But how can you consistently and effectively refer business to your partner?
Print Partner is dedicated to supporting our MSP partners in every way we possibly can. To help you amp up your referral game, we create free collateral for you to use on potential referrals.
Our ultimate goal is to set our partners up for success - when you win, we win!
In this article, we will go over Print Partner’s extensive marketing collateral suite and review all the materials we offer that will set you up to be an effective print referral partner. We want to support you in introducing your clients to our parent company, Green Office Partner.
1. Print Partner Email Campaigns
One of the greatest perks of working with a preferred print vendor is that you can offload all of your print-related duties to a third party. Once you introduce us to your client, we handle everything - sales, support, etc.
And so, we want to make the introduction process as quick and painless for you as possible.
Sending a simple, well-written email suggesting that your clients chat with us has been by far the most effective form of outreach for our partners.
But crafting the correct language for a print-related email can be daunting. Where do you start?
Don’t worry - we got you covered.
We start by offering you options from our pre-made email templates. We have options to choose from that are quick call-to-actions for your clients.
Email Template #1
[Insert CFO/CEO name]:
I am always thinking of ideas to cut costs and ultimately impact your P&L .
Since COVID, several of my client CFO's have told me about a "CFO Print Assessment" with some pretty impressive results:
- Reduction of their monthly printer/copier expense by 20-30%.
- Contracts are "right-sized" since fewer employees are coming into the office.
- Their offices are no longer cluttered with unnecessary, outdated, and unreliable printers/copiers.
- A/P pays a single monthly bill and knows exactly who is spending company profits on unnecessary color printing.
Below is a snippet from a recent CFO assessment I reviewed. If interested, simply reply to me and I will connect you with our preferred print vendor.
Regards,
[Your Signature]
Email Template #2
Hi [Name],
When was the last time you had a proper assessment of your print needs? A few months? A few years? Ever?
You may be overpaying for a service that may not meet your needs.
We are providing complimentary print assessments for each of our clients to ensure you are paying only for what you need.
Here's how it works:
- You send us a copy of your current print agreement.
- We review documents with our preferred print vendor and find areas to reduce costs and maximize efficiency.
- We'll send you a print scorecard outlining areas where savings are available.
That's it!
To get started, please respond to this email with a copy of your current print agreement, and we'll get the assessment underway.
Regards,
[Your Signature]
Custom Email Campaigns
You are welcome to run with the templates we offer! They provide a great starting point for your clients.
However, we understand that some of our MSP partners are married to their unique branding style.
For those of you who want a more hand-tailored experience, we can collaborate with you to create language that takes advantage of your brand.
You know your client base better than anyone, so we want your input in creating the most effective collateral possible!
Once we decide on the right message, your MSP will send out the email to your clients. Whether that be all of your book of business or a small selection is something we can discuss, as we need to make sure that referrals will be a good fit for our service suite.
2. Social Media Posts
Another easy way to get us in front of your client base is to make social media posts.
We create social media posts on various platforms to help you easily and effectively market managed print to your audience.
Whether your brand favors formal, professional-sounding copy or more casual, stylized copy, we will collaborate with you to make the perfect post.
Creating a compelling CTA to blast out to your followers is a quick, free way to reach different audiences.
For posts to be compelling, you need to already have a solid presence on the platform you want to reach out to - tweeting to 10 followers is about as impactful as yelling out your window.
But if you have at least a few hundred connections on your platform of choice, it's absolutely worth it to blast out a call-to-action to your followers to check out your preferred print vendor.
Based on our experience, here are the social media platforms most conducive to print-related posts.
LinkedIn is the perfect platform for marketing managed print services to your book of business.
When your clients scroll on LinkedIn, they are in “business mode” and are ready to be marketed to. Many will have their guard up and will be hesitant to engage with posts that just say, “Consider working with us!”
To stand out, we need to give detailed explanations that clearly explain the value of managed print services.
Structure your LinkedIn post in the following manner:
- Address a pain point your clients have
- Explain how MPS can help solve this problem
- Offer a link for clients to click if they want to address this problem!
That’s it! Keep it short, sweet, and professional.
Ah, Facebook. The old tried and true - the perfect platform to keep up with your hometown friends, read unreliable news stories, and check when Aunt Martha’s birthday is.
But when used properly, Facebook can also be a powerful marketing tool.
First, we can help you post on your company’s Facebook page. Facebook users tend to favor longer, more casual posts than other platforms.
Unlike LinkedIn users, Facebook users are less inclined to search the web for business solutions, so you need to be mindful of catching eyes and turning heads.
Consider using personal anecdotes and appealing to emotions.
What has your business been struggling with? How can MPS help you achieve this piece of mind?
Another way to use Facebook is by reaching out to people via Facebook Groups.
Groups on Facebook are often tight-knit communities that focus on one topic, whether it be an IT support group like IT Business Owners Group or IT/MSP Entrepreneurs, a business strategy group, etc.
These are great avenues to meet new potential clients and also plug print service into your existing relationships.
While this can be a great form of outreach, check your group’s rules and guidelines - in certain groups, certain forms of solicitation will get removed, leading to a group ban. If you are unsure what is and is not acceptable, consult your group’s admin.
A Tweet is 140 characters. Make those characters count!
Twitter users tend to have the shortest attention span of any social media user pool. They want flashy language, pretty pictures, and absolutely no fluff!
Crafting a Print Partner Tweet is often a one or two-sentence statement that asks a short question about a pain point, followed by an MPS solution.
For example:
How much is your company printing? When was the last time you had a professional audit of your print usage? Consider meeting with our preferred vendor.
Short, sweet, and to the point! Whether you think LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter would be most appropriate, we will work with you to create a language that fits your audience on each platform.
3. Print Partner Downloadable PDFs
If your client requests some information to chew on before meeting with us, Print Partner offers customizable PDFs that you can let your clients browse at their leisure.
PDF brochures are a great option for the tougher nuts to crack. Giving your clients materials to look at overnight can encourage them to meet with us.
The PDF explains the services of Green Office Partner and the types of services we offer to your clients. It also goes over the relationship between your MSP and our company - why do we work together? What are the synergies our companies have when we collaborate?
Having materials to explain our company is an excellent way for your company to go beyond basic lip service, allowing you to build credibility with your clients.
It makes us look legit.
When we send you a sharable PDF, we’ll adjust the language to name your MSP specifically. We create a personalized version of our PDF template and add your brand’s logo.
Sometimes, we can also create additional language to make your company stand out. It all depends on your preferences, and what makes the most sense for your client base.
4. Print Partner Blog Topics
Finally, we have the blog posts.
If you scroll through our Print Partner Learning Center, you’ll find a content library to support MSP messaging.
Currently, all of our content caters to educating our MSP partners.
But beginning in Q2 of this year, we plan to roll out content focused on educating our clients directly - content you can share with your customers!
While we have our agenda of the content we want to create, we want to collaborate with our MSP partners to move forward. If you have specific topics you’d like us to prioritize, we will gladly collaborate with you on particular blog posts.
Print Partner and MSP Collateral
At Print Partner, our goal is to support our MSP partners through every step of the sales process.
And once you make the introduction, we’ll handle everything else. From closing the deal to the service that follows, we take complete ownership of the account.
Plus, you get paid! For each qualified referral you send our way, we'll pay you at least $250, plus $1,000 per copier sold and 5% on the client's lifetime print allotment.
If you want a partner that walks you through every step of the process and handles the print account from start to finish, consider partnering with us, a Print Partner you can trust.
