Breaking into a new vertical is one of the smartest marketing decisions you can make for your MSP, here’s how to get started. Also this week, why MSPs are terrified of guarantees, and the huge AI revenue opportunity for MSPs.

Welcome to Episode 327 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green, powered by the MSP Marketing Edge.

No vertical for your MSP? That’s a mistake

One of the smartest marketing decisions you can make for your MSP, is choosing to break into a new vertical. Because marketing to a vertical is easier, more effective, and ultimately more profitable. A lot more profitable. And a lot of MSPs want this, but they don’t know where to get started. So let’s talk right now about how to enter any vertical you like and get traction quickly and easily.

Choosing to work in a vertical is like switching from a megaphone over to a sniper rifle. Most MSPs marketing sends a pretty generic message, something like, We help businesses of all sizes, any kind of business, with their IT, which is very lovely and friendly but also utterly forgettable. Vertical focus marketing says, We help dental practices eliminate downtime, secure patient records, and keep imaging systems running smoothly, and suddenly with a message like that you are relevant, you are specific, and you sound like someone who understands that exact person that you are talking to. The thing is that humans, we respond to familiarity. Prospects respond to relevance. Marketing responds to focus.

When you pick a vertical, your story becomes sharper, your audience becomes easier to find, your content becomes dramatically better, your conversion rates jump, and you instantly differentiate from every generalist MSP around you.

This is especially true in professions like accountants, lawyers, dentists (like I was just saying), medical clinics and manufacturers. These groups all share similar software compliance concerns, workflows, frustrations, and even buying psychology. This is marketing heaven, but how do you actually break into one? Let’s get into the practical stuff. There are three phases to entering a vertical. First, understand the vertical. Next, build the assets and the messaging. And then thirdly, build the audience.

So let’s do phase one, understanding the vertical. This is kind of like the homework phase and it’s also where most MSPs skip straight ahead to the marketing and you kind of miss out on all the prep work. So please do do this bit. To break into a new vertical, you must first understand the software that they use, the regulations that they’re bound by and maybe even that they fear, and the workflows that frustrate them. You’ve got to understand the downtime disasters that could ruin their day, the KPIs that they care about, the conferences they attend, the associations that they belong to, the influencers they listen to and the language they use. If you talk their language, even just 70% of it, you instantly feel to them like your one of them. And no, you don’t need decades of experience in their vertical. You just need curiosity, a bit of research, a handful of conversations, and the ability to turn what you’ve learned, your insight, into content for them and to adapt your conversations to take all of it into account.

Once you understand their world, you are ready for phase two, which is building up your assets and your messaging. And the question I always get from MSPs on this is, Paul, should I have a page on my website or should I have a whole separate website? Well, my recommendation for this is to start simple. So yes, you begin with a single vertical specific page on your main website. Don’t go building 17 new websites before you even know whether or not the vertical is going to respond to you. So your vertical page on your existing site should include a really clear headline which says something simple like, IT support for dentists in or in , but make sure you reflect the pains they feel, the outcomes they want, the software that you support, and you can name it specifically if there’s like three or four big software pieces, packages that they use, they name the two or three of them that you know can work with.

There should also be some case studies if you have them, or if you don’t have them perhaps some testimonials from other clients. Ideally it should be clients within that vertical. That’s something just to kind of go back and fill in when you start working with somebody in that sector. And then what you can do, regardless of whether you yet got vertical clients or not, is a short video of you talking directly to that vertical, and of course a very strong call to action. The call to action that works best right now is for them to book a 15 minute call with you in your live calendar. So this page becomes your home base. A separate website is the next thing that you do, but you only do that when the vertical responds, when you’re getting some traction, when you’ve got at least a couple of clients in it, because a separate website will give you the illusion of exclusivity, but of course it’s a ton of work and you don’t want to waste months and months when you could be dipping your toe into the water and seeing if that vertical is interested in what you have to offer.

Now, when you are starting out, should you have a separate LinkedIn profile? Well, probably yes. I mean, I know that LinkedIn hates duplicate profiles and it’s hard to build up a whole new LinkedIn profile from the get-go, but if you’ve got your general LinkedIn profile now, it makes sense to start a second profile that’s aimed directly at the vertical that you really want to speak to and make sure that’s got positioning content in there that talks directly to that vertical. Right down to your headline in your profile saying that you’re doing IT for dentists in , something like that. Keep it very clean, keep it very authentic. And I wouldn’t do any other social channels, maybe down the line again perhaps once you’ve set up a separate website, but just to get started you can just do a page on your existing site and a separate LinkedIn profile. Or if they’re not using LinkedIn for their own marketing, you’d use whatever social media platform they use. For example, to reach restaurant owners, hotel owners, they don’t use LinkedIn, but they use Instagram for their own marketing. So you would set up an Instagram page to go and get those people, just as an example.

Now, what you absolutely should build early on is an audience. And this is where vertical marketing becomes magic because vertical audiences are easy to find, easy to target, and super easy to warm up. So you start by building a vertical specific prospect list. You can use Google of course, obviously LinkedIn if it’s a thing that they use, if they’re a B2B company. Then you’ve got other sites like Apollo and Lusher, those will sell you data or provide you with data. You can use professional associations, often you can find lists of members, which is kind of crazy, but why wouldn’t you use that? There are online directories, there’s all sorts of places to find people. It’s really, really, really easy to find audiences and list of audiences within a specific vertical. And then you build content that speaks only to these people.

Create a vertical specific lead magnet, which is something where people give their email address to opt into your database, to your CRM. Something that has the word dentists and your area, your town or your region in it. Then you’d build out a vertical specific email sequence, a vertical newsletter, checklists that are just of interest to that vertical, mistakes to avoid, you know what mistakes they want to be avoiding because of their fears and the things they’re scared of, the regulation and the things that could go wrong for them. You could do software comparisons between the different software they use. You could do videos, you could tell funny stories that only someone in that vertical would get. When your content feels like it could only have been written for them, they’re really going to lean in. And that allows you to start to build relationships the slow and powerful way.

Pick 20 people in the vertical and start commenting on their posts. Reply to their content, send helpful for resources, ask them short questions, share insights with them. Just check in with them occasionally, you can email them, you can message them on social media, you can just be in touch with them and you start to build up a profile in their world. You’re not selling, you’re just becoming familiar to them because familiarity is the gateway to trust, and trust is the currency of high value clients.

Now let’s just go a little bit deeper into practicalities. I suggest you create what I call a vertical starter kit. So this would include a landing page, a downloadable lead magnet, a simple three email nurture sequence, a short video intro, a list of a couple of hundred to 500 prospects, a quarterly webinar topic, a few articles to go onto your website and a case study even if you have to repurpose a vendor’s case study within that specific vertical.

And then you can run a 90 day marketing sprint. And the goal of this sprint is to build awareness, generate some repeated impressions, to launch some tailored content, and create your first wins, replies, comments, conversations, all of that kind of stuff. You’re looking for engagement on email, that’s people hitting reply. You’re looking for engagement on LinkedIn or the social media platform we’re using, which can be as simple as likes or replies or comments. You’re looking for webinar signups and you’re looking for time spent by people on your vertical page or your micro website if you’ve built one. Ultimat