Use Content Marketing Magic to Attract Residential Managed Services Clients

Content marketing is so powerful because it enables you to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time… in the right format!

When it comes to attracting residential MSP customers for your tech business, it’s easy to feel like no one is listening to your message. But using a variety of different channels and focusing on unique consumer pain points can be the just “magic” you need to be heard.

If you’ve ever felt like you were hitting a brick wall with the residential managed services niche, read on for several tips on ways to break through and earn more business.

The Right Message at The Right Time  

Content marketing is really just “marketing,” it just uses a more helpful and informational strategy than traditional advertising. Your blogs, social posts, videos, and more are an essential fuel for your tech business marketing engine.

Create content that users are interested in, especially if that content is about a problem they have, and they’ll come to you for solutions.

With all the online options available today, your content can be delivered in multiple ways. 61% of consumer buying decisions are influenced by custom content. And at the same time, custom content generates about 3x more leads than traditional advertising and costs 62% less.

With a good content marketing strategy, a tech business owner can do the following:

• Put a social media post about remote support in front of a home schooling mom
• Post a LinkedIn article for work-from-home freelancers
• Highlight a video about identity theft to cyber aware seniors

Using your varied content marketing channels to support your message and to target unique residential customer personas, you can highlight a different pain point for each. This helps ensure your message hits the mark.

First, we’ll talk about the importance of using the right content marketing channel for the right group and identifying your different residential customer personas. Then, we’ll go into several different pain points you can highlight to speak to each group.

What Are My Residential MSP Customer Personas?

All residential customers are not created equal. That’s especially true because of the pandemic, which had just about every type of person using their home computer to connect with the outside world.

Once things get back to normal, many of those who transformed their home into an office will still be working remotely.

Before COVID-19, 7 million people in the U.S. were working remotely.

Before you can craft your marketing to reach each different customer type with a message speaking to their pain point, you need to identify who they are.

Residential customer personas may differ according to your distinct area, but here are some of the most common.

• Senior/retired – May need help securing and understanding their devices
• Busy Family – Looking for technology to be secure and “just work right”
• Work from Home Employee – Needs business-grade security/support; may not purchase residential MSP but can recommend to employer
• Work from Home Business Owner – May not realize yet how important MSP services are to them
• Work from Home Freelancer – Time is money, they need productivity out of their computer
• Parents of At Home Students – Parents need students to learn instead of struggle with IT problems

Which Marketing Channels Should I Use?

Some marketing channels are going to be right for everyone (i.e. email, video, blog), while others will be better for one particular persona than another.

For example, if you want to reach retired seniors, then Facebook may be a better choice than LinkedIn. If you’re looking to reach those working from a home office, then LinkedIn would most likely be your first choice.

Here are a few content marketing statistics from HubSpot to give you a little guidance:

• 80% of marketers say they’ve seen a direct sales increase from video
• About two-thirds of U.S. adults are Facebook users
• LinkedIn is the 2^nd most popular social media platform for B2B marketers (FB is 1^st)
• 35% of Instagram users are between 25 and 34 years old
• 43% of U.S. females use Pinterest to get information
• People are 2x as likely to share content that’s in video format than any other type

Using your blog as the foundation for your content marketing campaign gives you the perfect place to start.

From a blog written to speak to one or more customer persona pain points, you can create:

• Marketing email
• eBook
• Infographic
• Social media posts
• Video
• Webinar
• Facebook Live
• Podcast

Speaking to Residential Customer Pain Points   

Once you understand your different residential customer types, it becomes much easier to target your value statement to address their specific pain points.

For some of these pain points, all users will feel them (like wanting to be secure) and for others, the paint points will speak to a specific type of residential user.

Here are some of the standard paint points that residential users have, and which managed services can help them solve.

Data Breach, Identity Theft, and Cyber Safety

The need for data security is something every residential computer user can relate to. No one wants to become the victim of a data breach or have their bank account attacked by a hacker that’s able to steal their login credentials.

Focus on pertinent residential statistics that are as recent as you can find. Such as the fact that the FBI has received 4 times as many cybercrime complaints since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Managed IT services can provide peace of mind in an increasingly dangerous online environment, where phishing attacks and threats are getting more sophisticated all the time.

High Repair Costs

The monthly cost of a residential or work from home (WFH) managed services plan might be a sticking point for some potential customers. But, if they realize how much an expensive repair or data breach cleanup could cost them, an MSP can look like a bargain in comparison.

Quote some of the standard costs for:

• Repairing a hard drive
• Data recovery after a breach
• Identify theft cost average (avg cost for age 80+ is over $1,500.)
• Ransomware attack cleanup

Show users that the cost of your monthly managed services is much lower than typical repair costs that come from an unprotected/unmanaged computer.

Don’t Know Where to Get Fast IT Support

When a computer problem happens, it’s an incredible inconvenience. It can keep students from finishing an assignment, put a home worker at a standstill, or keep a senior from connecting to their family.

Residential managed IT services is like having their own tech support department in their living room. If they have any computer questions or need help with anything, they already have a connection to an IT pro and can get fast remote support when they need it. No visit to an IT shop needed!

You can add how already having a relationship with your tech business saves them tons of time trying to find an IT pro that’s available and explaining their entire system to them. You already know them and their computer.

Lost Files, Photos, Videos

Nearly every computer user, home or business, has experienced data loss of some type. No one wants to lose precious family photos or videos, nor does a freelancer want to lose important customer work product.

Stress the problems with trying to use a cloud storage system as a backup. Synching issues and drive crashes can cause data loss with no way to get files back, unless, of course they’re properly backed up and protected with a managed services plan.

Slow Computer Limiting Income

For those residential users that run a business from home or are freelancers, when their computer is slow, it directly impacts their income. They are often working according to work output per hour, so if a slow computer causes a project to take twice as long as it should, they make half as much.

Discuss how much all those lost minutes dealing with IT issues are costing when it comes to income. The average U.S. worker spends 22 minutes a day dealing with IT issues, and those are workers in an office with a support system. It’s easily twice that for at home workers that don’t have any support.

Calculating that out at 44 minutes per day would be a little over 3.5 hours per week, or about 14.5 hours per month. Multiplied by the average freelancer income of $31 per hour, equals about $450 per month, much less than a managed services plan.

Not Being Able to Enjoy Technology Benefits

There are many engaging benefits for seniors when it comes to technology. They can video chat with family and friends and handle several tasks online instead of having to go out and stand in line at a cable company or post office.

But not being able to enjoy those benefits because their computer is acting up or it isn’t optimized to make things easy for them can just lead to frustration and feeling inadequate.

Discuss how residential managed services can empower seniors to get the most out of their technology by putting them in charge and giving them the support that they need to be successful.

PC Emergencies that Stress Out the Entire Family  

Nothing disrupts a family schedule like a computer that’s down. Students can’t get online to get assignments, a remote employee is cut off from their office, and everything can be thrown off until that PC gets fixed.

Explain how managed services are designed to stop downtime before it happens by alerting tech support of any potential issues so they can be addressed instantly via the remote connection.

What Happens If My Hard Drive Suddenly Crashes?

One worry that most computer users have, and especially those that depend on their home computer for their income, is having a hard drive crash and being at a standstill until they can take it somewhere to be looked at.

In the meantime, they’re without their main source of income and may potentially have to spend money they weren’t expecting to buy a new computer.

Discuss preventative maintenance and how residential managed services and continuous monitoring can catch hard drive issues well before they cause a crash, mitigating a big potential cost.

Tailored Content Marketing Means More Leads

Blogs are the starting point for all your other content marketing. If you don’t have the time or skills to write blogs yourself, Tech Blog Builder can help you with customized blog content.

When you inject your content marketing with customer-tailored messages, it’s like adding a booster rocket. Your message has a much better chance of connecting and thus generating the leads and sales you’re looking for.

What’s one of the biggest IT pain points your residential customers have? Let us know in the comments!