The most common MSP marketing mistake

People do not buy features, they buy benefits… many MSP’s know this but very few actually live it in their marketing, here’s how to change that. Also this week, is your MSP’s expertise hiding in plain sight? And how much is your MSP really worth?

Welcome to Episode 328 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green, powered by the MSP Marketing Edge.

The most common MSP marketing mistake

There’s a basic marketing mistake that the vast majority of MSPs make. In fact, once you know what it is, you’re going to see it everywhere. It’s going to drive you crazy, you’ll see it on your website, on your LinkedIn, on your other marketing channels. But the good news is I can help you to spot it and fix it in the next five minutes.

We are diving into one of the most fundamental principles in all of marketing. People do not buy features, they buy benefits. Now, every MSP has heard this, but very few actually live it in their marketing. And the reason this matters so much is because features and benefits land completely differently in our brains.

A feature is normally processed logically, it engages the analytical part of the mind that loves detail but really doesn’t like to make decisions. Whereas a benefit is processed emotionally and hits the part of our heart and also the brain that drives action, that imagines outcomes, that feels relief, confidence and safety. And here’s the uncomfortable truth…

All buying decisions made by ordinary business owners and managers start emotionally. People only use logic afterwards to justify what they already wanted.

So features live in the logical world. Benefits live in the emotional world. When you talk about features, you are speaking to the wrong part of the brain… you’re speaking to the part of the brain that doesn’t buy. But when you talk about benefits, you’re speaking directly to the part of the brain that says yes. And this is why when MSPs proudly list their features – 24/7 monitoring, remote support, patching, ticket automation, all of that stuff – prospects kind of nod politely, but they’re kind of glazing over and they feel nothing. It’s like listing ingredients instead of actually showing the finished meal, it’s like describing the different parts of the engine rather than describing the feeling of driving the car.

So benefits create pictures in people’s minds and they let the prospect imagine what life will be like when they’re working with you. And you do know that imagination is one of the strongest decision-making tools that humans possess, right? Let’s make this real. When you say “24/7 monitoring”, that’s just a mechanism, it doesn’t actually mean anything to a normal business owner. But if you say to them, Hey, we spot problems early which means fewer business disruptions, then suddenly that becomes something tangible that they can feel.

They can imagine a calmer working day, systems just running and fewer surprises, and that is a benefit. When you say “remote support”, again, that’s just a mechanism. But if you say, Hey, we can fix issues really quickly without downtime and you don’t even need to wait for us to arrive, that becomes a benefit because that sends a message of speed and convenience and continuity. When you say “regular patching and updates”, they’re yawning because you’re naming a process. But if you say, Hey, look, so your security stays strong with zero effort from your team, you guys don’t have to do anything, that’s a benefit and it speaks of safety and ease and peace of mind.

So features describe what something is, whereas benefits describe what something does. That’s the big difference between the two. Features force the prospect to translate what you’ve said in their brain into some kind of emotional meaning, whereas benefits you’ve alre...