Best & Worst Marketing Ideas for MSPs

If you're a Managed Service Provider (MSP), chances are you’ve asked yourself this more than once: “Why aren’t our marketing efforts working?” You’re not alone. In the latest Voice of the Microsoft Partner, Sherman Crancer explained exactly why most MSPs are struggling to generate net-new pipeline.

This month’s roundtable was a deep dive into what’s working, and what’s failing, in MSP marketing right now. The verdict? Most partners are running their marketing like it’s 2015, not 2025. And if you’re still relying solely on referrals or mass cold emails, you’re missing the bigger opportunity.

Sherman opened the session with a brutal truth: if you don’t have a professional sales and marketing motion in place, you’re not built for growth. The reality is, most MSPs have engineering-heavy teams with limited sales support and almost no lead nurturing process. It’s not that leads are bad, it’s that follow-up is broken. Sherman compared the industry to a T-Rex: all muscle in ops, tiny arms in sales and marketing.

So, what should partners actually be doing?

Start with a real go-to-market strategy. That means knowing who your top 100 accounts are, building targeted nurture campaigns around their needs, and aligning your messaging with actual business outcomes, not generic promises of 24/7 support. The roundtable covered five marketing strategies that are delivering results in 2025: AI-powered cybersecurity education campaigns, vertical-specific messaging, local SEO and review generation, bundled service packaging, and personalized email sequences built around intent signals.

Sherman also pulled up real MSP websites and gave honest feedback on what’s working (spoiler: vertical messaging and clear CTAs) and what isn’t (boilerplate copy and vague value props). If your site doesn’t speak directly to the industries you serve, you’re blending in, not standing out.

On the flip side, we broke down five of the worst offenders in MSP marketing today. These included untargeted email blasts, meaningless claims like “#1 IT Provider,” trade show booths without a digital follow-up strategy, blog content stuffed with keywords instead of real insights, and local Facebook ads that miss the mark for B2B buyers. If any of these sound familiar, it’s time to rethink your marketing motion.

The biggest takeaway? Net-new acquisition doesn’t happen by chance; it happens by design. If your growth strategy is built around waiting for referrals or recycling the same tactics as everyone else, you’re already behind. But if you’re ready to build a repeatable, scalable system for bringing in qualified leads, the path is clear. Start by fixing your follow-up, building vertical relevance, and turning your content into a true conversion engine.

Watch the highlights:

Watch the full session here:

Register for future roundtables here.