Content Writing vs. Copy Writing
In your MSP marketing, you do not need to necessarily make an ironclad distinction between the authorship of copy and the authorship of content. Both have their place, and if you’re savvy, you can incorporate them together. But properly doing so requires understanding where some distinction may lie. Basically, content writing refers to that which is valuable and is designed to organically predicate demographic response. This includes blogs, viral videos–content that’s useful, shareable, and perhaps even entertaining to some degree. Meanwhile, copywriting is what may conventionally be termed “salesy”— “Buy buy buy!”, “This weekend’s discount will give you greater value than ever!” You get the idea.
Copywriting has become so well-known that many readers don’t actually scan through it anymore. They’ll see signs of it and move on. Accordingly, content writers have been commissioned to create that which is similar, but different. Still, though search engine algorithms and client preferences don’t prefer many of copywriting’s traditional trappings, there are ways to incorporate them into content for greatest effect.
Copy/Content Strategy
What you may want to do is focus on case studies. For example, if you provide IT services that include cloud computing, you might want to show how one of your clients cut out their onsite servers, instituted cloud computing, launched a BYOD campaign, eliminated operational costs, expanded profitability, and ultimately made more money than they spent on the venture. You can provide exact numbers and contrast the company in terms of where it was before such a solution were launched. Basically, by writing a white paper about a case study pertaining to your target demographic, you’re essentially designing content that’s also considered copy. This is MSP marketing at its finest.
That said, as you may imagine, designing content that has the same effect as copy, without being so over-the-top it becomes irritating, isn’t something that will happen overnight or without effort. You’re going to need a strategy behind your content marketing endeavors. One of the wisest choices in this regard is working with a content agency that specializes in your market. If you’re an MSP, you want a content agency that understands your clientele, as well as the technology you sell. This will allow them to design content on a regular basis which gets at the core of your demographic’s needs.
You’ll want to produce about 50 pieces of content monthly or about 1.6 a day on average. That’s a lot! You’ll want to do this for about a year, and the content should be between 500 and 1,000 words. As you may imagine, that’s enough content to predicate the acquisition of a nearly full-time employee. The cost of such an individual is much higher than the cost of working with an established agency.
Establishing an Effective Strategy
An MSP marketing campaign that incorporates content with copy in an oblique way is more likely to be effective while simultaneously maximizing marketing techniques that have been refined over the decades. Working with an agency that specializes in precisely this kind of content marketing can be a very wise move for your MSP. In today’s market, there are many tools for marketing digitally, so use them to your full advantage.
