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Bridging the ROI Gap - Why MSP Agencies Need a Sales Platform Partner
Act as a catalyst for change. Become Revenue Growth Advisors for your clients.
The managed service industry is one the fastest growing and fiercely competitive spaces in business globally. As a marketing agency, you are at the forefront of generating leads and business for your MSP clients —and you’re assessed by ROI.
Have you ever considered that many agencies are assessed by a metric they have no insight into?
How Marketing Agencies Work with MSP Clients
- Your agency helps clients generate leads from inbound channels and outbound channels; assessing what is most successful, modifying campaigns, and experimenting with new techniques.
- To show the effectiveness of your campaigns (ex. Opportunity-to-Customer), you embrace a marketing automation platform (such as Hubspot or InfusionSoft)
- With this marketing automation platform, you employ various tactics to generate leads. These leads then traverse from subscribers to MQLs to SQLs and finally to solid opportunities.
- These leads flow into the client's CRM, and once they convert, show how your marketing efforts brought in clients and deals. Deals are essential; deals mean dollars instead of vague calculations based on the number of leads converted multiplied by the MSP’s average client spend.
- The process repeats. Your agency continues to generate consistent leads, and the client converts them. Sales and revenue grow. They’re happy, you’re happy.
Okay, now back to reality.
The last part seemed like a stretch, right? That’s because this is the ideal scenario. This is the way that marketing agencies want to work with their MSPs, unfortunately, there are a lot of roadblocks.
Let’s talk about the caveats in this process.
How to Show ROI - For Many Agencies it’s Impossible!
- No Access: As an external third party, you may not often have access to the client’s CRM. It’s just an integration to the marketing automation platform where the transfer of leads is automated with no real visibility into how leads are won.
- No Pipeline Information: The clients are hesitant to share the actual numbers of opportunities converted. Some won’t even share quarterly revenue numbers or average deal size. For some this is because of privacy, for others, they may have only a rough estimate and no solid figures.
- No Software: You’re not getting access to the sales side of the equation so you dive back into what you know - marketing tools. Setting up goals in Google Analytics you rely on guesswork trying to interpret website behavior like lead form submits, number of page views, duration of time on site, etc. While these are important indicators of engagement, they’re high in the funnel and don’t effectively tell the story to show how marketing investment led to business return.
Marketing and Sales Go Together
Many MSP agencies lack real visibility into the entire marketing and sales cycle.
It’s becoming increasingly imperative for marketing agencies to own the entire marketing and sales technology stack, so they are not simply marketing agencies but Revenue Growth Advisors.
Some are combating this challenge by hiring revenue operations managers or funnel growth specialists to advise clients, but this is costly, and sometimes new employees still don’t have all the tools they need to succeed, cobbling together sophisticated workarounds. And what if this data still doesn’t prove ROI?!
If bottom-line business results are required, then marketing teams need to get closer to the dotted line, knowing which leads become contracts, how they're serviced, and how long they’re retained.
The Benefits of a Sales Technology Partner
Choosing the right sales partner is crucial, and when done right, you can reap benefits for a long time.
1. Own Long-Term Growth for Your Clients
Many MSPs are working IN the business and not ON the business.
So they have a hard time working their pipeline consistently and getting sales.
If the leads generated by your marketing activities are not followed up on in a timely manner, the value of the leads decline, making it appear that the marketing agency is sourcing low-quality leads.
Then what happens? More often than not, IT providers and Channel Partners blame agencies for their lack of sales which then leads to switching marketing “on” and “off” - compounding an already frustrating situation for the MSP owner.
By partnering with a sales platform, you get clear visibility into what leads/opportunities convert to actual prospects and how marketing can support sales teams better.
Even better, sales goals will be set taking into account historical data, forecasted accurately, and completed on time. Now you can adjust marketing activities to adequately fill the pipeline.
2. Show How Your Agency Leads - Run the Entire Marketing and Sales Stack
Partnering with a sales platform helps you build your marketing agency as a comprehensive solution provider.
In a single package, you sell expertise in lead generation, lead qualification, sales funnel management and analytics. You also get resources and assistance on product development, which drives customer acquisition, retention, and upsell.
What Makes a Good Partner?
Let’s take a look at some of the qualities you’ll want when partnering your agency with a sales platform.
Parallel Offerings
The partner’s product or service should fill a gap in your product or help your customers use your offering more effectively.
Similar ICPs
Will your clients benefit from your partner’s product? Your sales technology should have all the additional support, features, and solutions that your clients need — straight out of the box. Matching ICPs, be sure that your sales platform partner fits your client’s business size, geography, and vertical/use cases.
Sales Cohesiveness
Your partner’s deal registration process should be compatible with your day-to-day operations. Also, introducing a sales platform that solves your client’s pain points should feel natural, so your new partner should help your team learn any salient selling points that will help further conversations.
Technical Expertise
Identify how much technical knowledge you would require to sell your partner’s products. Find out if they have a robust knowledge base and dedicated support that can help you ease into the selling process. Keep yourself updated with their latest news, product updates, and strategic announcements.
Ongoing Support
Support is not a one-time thing. Your ideal partner should have a dedicated team of sales, support, and onboarding staff that can address your and your client’s questions at any time.
These characteristics give you a good framework for evaluating specific partners.
The right sales partner can help you scale up your agency, enable an end-to-end sales pipeline for clients, and maximize revenue - all without adding headcount. Some of the most successful digital marketing agencies are built entirely on savvy product partnerships.
Your Process, Our Platform: Try the Zomentum Advantage
Built for the Channel, Zomentum’s Sales Acceleration Platform eliminates numerous tools with one modern platform that mimics the way MSPs sell. Our Partners track opportunities and convert more deals faster by developing an efficient sales process.
Solution Providers who use Zomentum see results:
By partnering with Zomentum, you can:
Add a New Revenue Stream
Expand your business by adding Zomentum to your offering and watch a new revenue stream come in. Go beyond just generating leads. Help your MSP clients track, close, and win opportunities. With Zomentum, your clients will see opportunities moving across every stage of their pipeline, converting to revenue seamlessly.
Get Listed in Our Marketing Directory
Lead generation for marketing agencies can be tricky. One of the perks of being associated with Zomentum is that we list you in our extensive IT Partner base to help you generate leads and grow your business.
Maintain Data and Context Integrity
The transition of data from marketing to sales can be cumbersome, often leading to loss of context. Zomentum fits perfectly into your MSP’s existing IT ecosystem by seamlessly integrating with a host of popular PSAs and CRMs to ensure all data transition is hassle-free.
Ensure Your Clients Stick with You
Your customers look to you for solutions that make their processes more manageable. So their success is your success! Zomentum helps IT Partners get six-time more deals and get them to convert two-time more often. Our simple and scalable platform helps you win customers for life, not just business transactions.
Get Technical Support at Every Step
No need to train existing staff or hire a specialist. Our team of experts will ensure you have all the support you need to help wow your clients, from learning resources to onboarding services to dedicated customer success.
There has always been the expectation that marketing agencies will bring in revenue, but on the technology side, visibility was missing. To secure your future and accelerate growth for your agency, consider selling both marketing and sales technologies that empower your clients.
Interested? Learn more about Zomentum’s Agency Partner Program.
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