The other day I received an email about one of the latest offerings from one of the MSP Marketing Community’s biggest and loudest voices. The email offered the opportunity to leverage LinkedIn to fuel MSP prospecting.
Get this – it starts with a whopping $3000 one-time fee, followed by a monthly payment of $2500. Oh, and it’s a BETA program!
"Holy crap!" I thought to myself.
Then I began to think, "Stuart, some people are actually going to pay this much money for a program that offers no guarantee of success."
Here’s a hint…You can do this for free without having to shell out nearly $3,000 and spend $2,500 a month.
Here's what to do: Get my buddy Chris Hamilton’s LinkedIn marketing book for free at https://www.salestipaday.com. Chris’ theory is the one we actually subscribe to at Ulistic for our LinkedIn marketing.
BTW, we have documented success stories from managed service providers who've increased appointments and gained new business from our LinkedIn marketing.
Some Marketing Consultants Are Always Playing Catchup
This also got me thinking about how many marketing consultants are always two steps behind. Here's something I learned from watching Gary Vee's videos, “Everything is great until marketers ruin it.”
- Marketers ruined Google Adwords by driving the cost-per-click through the roof.
- Marketers ruined email marketing with gobs of spam email messages.
- Marketers ruined Facebook by exploiting it.
- And soon, marketers will ruin LinkedIn.
Here’s another example. Just like Google Adwords a few years back when the market was flooded with desperate MSPs looking for next great thing, LinkedIn will now "go to the dogs" as business owners, CEOs, CFOs and others fall victim to this “over fishing” on Linkedin.
Be cautious, please. Here’s how these programs work.
Many MSPs subscribe, and everyone gets the same exact script. And get this – everyone ends up targeting the same victims of your so-called thought leadership messaging. You’ll immediately turn them off because you and five other MSPs from the same vertical focus, business community or whatever are hitting people with the exact same crapware.
This is not how Social Media is supposed to work.
There are many examples where MSP Marketers created a trial of disruption.
The same thing happened with Infusionsoft. Ulistic was big on Infusionsoft until recently. (We still have a few clients holding on for dear life to this rapidly fading email marketing solution.) But then “Infusionsoft Done For You” fads surfaced, and like a crazy bunch of six-year-old kids playing soccer, many MSPs threw thousands of their hard-earned dollars at it to get a program that, yet again, their competitors used.
We’ve all seen this – marketing fads that make a fast buck off your hard work.
What's the answer?
You need an MSP Marketing Consultant who blazes new territory.
The Ulistic marketing team, led by Melissa Crawford, has been working with clients on LinkedIn now for the past 3 or so months and we've had some real success with it.
Melissa and her team combine the efforts of LinkedIn with other marketing strategies to offer a multi-level marketing solution – not just some half-assed attempt to give you something and take all your money.
What’s on the horizon?
We're now looking at Voice Search with Amazon Echo and Siri. We did some testing in the Buffalo, NY area and got some pretty interesting results.
Voice Search is on the horizon until some marketing person exploits it and ruins it.
You see, marketers ruin everything.
Facebook was a great program until marketers ruined it. They finally put the brakes on marketers who exploited their platform. They even purchased TV commercials to drive home the message that they'd quickly be spam-free.
LinkedIn holds the cards here as well. They could very easily pull the plug.
This is why I recommend you follow this advice:
Be careful where you invest your marketing dollars. Marketing your MSP isn’t as easy as using a “canned” solution and could cost you your reputation.
Please, don’t allow yourself to become another victim.
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