Nine Proven IT Marketing Techniques for Your Managed Service Business

Sales is the oldest profession. Yeah, even older than that other oldest profession (which happens to require plenty of selling in itself). And being that sales has been around so long, with so much money to be made, you better believe that people have studied what works and what doesn't.
So it's pretty mind-boggling to me how so many computer professionals still try to figure out on their own what kind of IT marketing techniques they should be using to promote their computer consulting business, where the most effective methods have already been revealed as proven to work by so many successful business owners that have gone before.
I've spent years studying... and testing... what IT Marketing has worked for others and then applied it to my own IT consulting business with great success... and I'm more than happy to share my results with you.

1. Sales Letters - Yup, a well written sales letter that follows a proven structure of A.I.D.A., and does a proper job of identifying what the reader's desires are and how to satisfy them will bring in more new customers easier than almost any other method of advertising. The trick is to make sure that you get your sales letter into the hands of the right target customer, promise you'll be able to deliver what they want, and then make them an offer they'd be crazy to refuse.
2. Referrals - Getting someone to recommend your service to someone else is definitely a form of IT Marketing, and one of the most powerful ones you'll ever find. If you have a satisfied client singing your praises to others, you'll have the easiest job of selling... ever!
3. Business Networking - Referrals are awesome. Business networking gives you the opportunity to meet dozens of like-minded business owners or sales professionals that will go out of their way to find YOU a new customer and refer them your way.
4. Cold-calling - You hate the very idea of cold-calling? You're not alone. It can be scary and very uncomfortable if you don't know how. But there's one indisputable fact about cold-calling that can't be denied. There is absolutely NO FASTER WAY to get new clients if you know how to do it right.
5. Your Website - WITH A SALES MESSAGE! Pretty, flashy websites might win awards, but they won't win you new clients. Your website can be a very useful marketing tool. Use it properly. Start by learning proper SEO techniques and make sure that the companies that are looking for you can actually find you!
6. An IT Newsletter - Now, an IT Newsletter isn't going to sell your services on its own, but there's no better way to keep your message and your presence in the forefront of your prospect's mind... and you'll be the one they turn to when the need finally arises.
7. "Giveaway" Reports - By giving away something of value, like a free report, you create reciprocity... you give them something, they want to give you something in return. Reciprocity isn't just an effective IT marketing technique... it's one of the most effective techniques that can be applied in any business. Ever hear the term "And keep the bonus items as our gift, just for giving us a try."
8. Creative Guarantees - Sorry, but a "Satisfaction Guarantee" doesn't mean jack. Satisfaction is expected. If I'm not satisfied, damn straight I ain't paying until you make things right, whether you "guarantee" it or not. Give your clients a guarantee that means something to them. Find their greatest frustrations and make a promise that they won't ever experience those frustrations with you.
9. Free Trial - Make it as easy as possible to get prospective new clients to get started with you. And what could be easier than "free"? Considering what the lifetime value of a monthly, managed small business client can be for you, isn't it worth it to give them a month of your service on the house so they can see how wonderful you really are?
Just using a few of these techniques in your IT marketing arsenal can be effective enough to generate the new business your company needs to continue to thrive. Put all of these techniques into play simultaneously, and your sales funnel will quickly be overflowing with hot new clients.

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The Best... And Most Affordable Utilities to Use When Starting A Consulting Business

When you're starting a consulting business as a computer consultant who supports small businesses, the utilities that will be most critical for your success will be those that allow you to monitor your client's systems, and that will allow you to provide instant, remote support for whenever an issue arises.
Fortunately today, the utilities that are available to perform these functions are not only completely reliable and extremely effective, but they're incredibly affordable... even to the independent computer consultant who is just starting out.
The following are the utilities I use in my own consulting business and the ones I recommend to anyone starting a consulting business of their own.
Network Monitoring:
For monitoring my client's server(s), I use GFI Max RemoteManagement. Current pricing is about $13/mo per server monitored. You can monitor the workstations as well for as low as an additional $0.10 per workstation per month.
You have the option to completely modify the dashboard and all reporting collateral with your own logo and branding.
If an error occurs on the server or if an alert is generated in the event logs, you can get an instant email alert. You also have the option to have the alerts delivered via SMS. You can also deliver these messages directly to your client, so they can see for themselves the activity and support needs on the server.
GFI Max also gives you a web-based dashboard, where you can easily see any problems on the network (backup failures, low disk space, hack attempts, etc). You can give your client viewable access to this dashboard so that they can see for themselves how healthy you're keeping their network. If they're having server problems, it helps you to show them why an on-site (billable) service call might be necessary.
You can use GFI Max to collect a workstation and server inventory in real-time, which you can make accessible to your clients at any time through the GFI Dashboard. Besides helping to justify your monthly fee, this inventory is very useful when regularly reviewed to find anything that might be outdated, which will help to generate additional, billable projects.
You can also generate daily, weekly or monthly health status reports to send to your clients to show them how great of a job you're doing (or how unhealthy their server might be during their free 30-day trial of your maintenance plan).
GFI Max offers a free 30-day trial. I suggest that if you have even one client with a server and small network, that you tell them that you're starting to move to a managed service model. Offer to install for them a free, no obligation trial of your monitoring system and let them see for themselves how many problems they may be facing because you're not currently proactively monitoring their system. Then you can show them how monitoring can increase their productivity and reduce expensive, unexpected downtime.
Remote Support:
For logging onto my end-user's workstations or to quickly check out a possible server problem, I use LogMeIn.
For many years, I used LogMeIn Free. The product is completely free, it supports an unlimited number of workstations, which are easily organized and divided by client.
The LogMeIn client must be installed on each server and workstation you want to access, so you will need to do an initial on-site setup of the application. But once the product is installed, as long as the client computer is on-line, you can quickly log onto it and work as if you were sitting at the desk side-by-side with the end-user.
A few years ago, I upgraded to LogMeIn Central, which is about $300/yr. It works almost exactly like the free product does, with one very useful addition... I can give every end-user their own access code so that they too can access their office computers remotely. (Without LogMeIn Central, if a user wanted to access their computer from home, I would have to remove their workstation from my LogMeIn account and set them up with their own LogMeIn Free account, or I would have to setup an entirely different remote access product for them to use).
Besides LogMeIn Central, I also use LogMeIn Rescue for $129/mo. This product, while a little pricey, has come in handy on many, many occasions. Rescue allows you to access any computer with an Internet connection, without you having to install the client software beforehand. You simply have the end-user go to the website http://logmein123.com, they enter a six-digit code that you generate for them and you have instant access to the desktop.
On many occasions I've had people (non-customers) call me up out of the blue to tell me about a computer problem they're having and asking if my company can fix it. I've said, "Would you mind if I took a look right now, just to get an idea of what's going on?" and using LogMeIn Rescue, within 30 seconds or so, they were watching the mouse pointer magically float around the screen as I fixed the problem before their eyes.
This little IT Marketing technique landed me new clients on more than one occasion and has easily made back the monthly fee many times over.
Whether you are just starting a consulting business, or you are already an established support provider, these two utilities can provide a very effective... and affordable foundation for providing reliable managed services to any small business client base.

Can Cold-Calling Work as an Effective IT Marketing Technique?

When looking for affordable and effective IT Marketing methods to use for attracting new clients to your computer consulting business, it's hard to ignore the potential that cold-calling can have for bringing in new clients quickly.
I know that cold-calling isn't everyone's favorite method of finding new clients. And if you feel it's not for you, I can definitely relate.
Before I understood how to do it properly, it absolutely terrified me.
But the fact is, there is no sales method that has the potential to work faster in bringing in new business than cold-calling.
Think about it for a second. If you knew how to make an effective cold-call and picked up the phone right now to contact local small businesses... you could potentially have several meetings lined up in the next few hours.
If you were to head out this morning and knock on the doors of your neighborhood businesses, you could actually have new clients before lunchtime.
And it wouldn't cost you a dime!
It all comes down to contacting enough potential clients and knowing the proper techniques for making them receptive to hearing you out.
Once I learned how to cold-call properly and saw for myself how effective it was, it became my go-to method for picking up new business when I needed to get things growing FAST!
If you're willing to give it a shot yourself, the rewards awaiting you will be well worth the effort.
Considering that you only need about four clients to have a full-time income as an Independent Computer Consultant, cold-calling has the potential for giving you your complete client base in a matter of days.
I've been doing this for a long time now and I'd like to give you a video showing you my own step-by-step process to making successful cold calls. In it I cover every detail that I follow myself when making either a phone call or when I go prospecting door-to-door.
==> Free Computer Consulting Cold Calling Instructional Video
This video will give you 100% of the instruction you need to go out and land some new clients TODAY!
The sales scripts I use are not included with this video, but I give you the step-by-step instructions for creating your own. If you need a hand, or if you have questions about how to do this, my email information is included on the video page. Feel free to contact me any time.
If you want to use cold-calling as part of your IT marketing arsenal and you want to save yourself some major time by using the exact same sales scripts, along with many more IT Templates that I've developed, tested, refined and proven to work by using them myself for years with great success, they're included in my IT Marketing kit, The Consultant's Toolkit, which you can read all about at http://SuccessfulComputerConsulting.com.