Why Every Managed Service Provider (MSP) Needs to Create Video Content

Ask a couple of teenagers whether they’d rather read a 400-page novel or watch a 90-minute live stream. (Sorry if I’m offending elitist high school English teachers everywhere.)

While there are literature geeks to be found in every high school, after all, someone has to come back and teach high school English, most teens, just like adults, would rather watch the video content than read the book.

Most Would Rather Skim or Watch Than Read

What makes you think that the readers of your managed service provider blog will be any different?

Sure, there are some readers that prefer to skim your 600-word blog post by just reading the Title, subheadings, and bulleted list items – because they can get to the main point in under a minute. And, of course, without the text, Google would not know what your web page and embedded video are about.

But many others would simply prefer to press the play button and watch at least part of the video or screencast that delivers that exact same content in a five-minute format. If your managed services content is remarkable and valuable enough, your viewer may even watch the video all the way to the end, take your recommended call to action (CTA) to heart, and become a lead for you on a related landing page.

Don’t Try to Win an Academy Award - Focus on Sharing Remarkable Content

There are many different ways that managed service providers can utilize video content. However, many never get started because they feel their video has to look like a Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg production. Big mistake. You don’t need the looks or talent of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, or even Seth Rogen to create successful video content.

In fact, you don’t even need to be “on camera” when you create screencast videos. In this post, we’ll look at five kinds of screencast content that can attract the right visitors to your MSP website:

1. Website walkthroughs – In this kind of screencast, you narrate visitors through a page on your website. While you can certainly just do the minimum and embed the screencast on the relevant web page, a little creative keyword research, SEO, and promotion can also make that video an external traffic generator that sends visitors directly to the right page.

2. Demos – This kind of screencast walks someone through one of your products, services, or a product or service you support. Again, external promotion can make these great traffic drivers, direct to the most relevant page on your website.

3. Tutorials – A little different in purpose, tutorials teach the viewer something. Some managed service providers will use tutorials to train their clients. Others may choose to use tutorials to train prospects on something with broader appeal. But the end goal is the same: to get the viewer to watch until the end and have the emotional reaction, “Wow! That was really helpful! What else does this individual or company have to say?” Gee, I never thought they’d ask! CTA anyone?!?

4. Webinar recordings – If you have 100 prospects or customers register for a webinar, perhaps 30 to 50 will actually attend live. Among the “no-shows,” a large percentage will watch the “replay” or webinar recording a few days or weeks later. But what most managed service providers don’t realize: if 100 registered to attend the live webinar, there’s an excellent chance that at least 10 or 20 times more people (1,000 to 2,000+) would watch the webinar recording over the next year or two if it were promoted to them. And because a webinar tends to be substantially longer than other types of screencasts (60 minutes vs. 5 to 10 minutes), those who watch the webinar to the end are likely to think to themselves, “Wow! Did I learn a lot! We’ve got to bring this company in to take a look at our computer network.”

5. Blog post screencasts – If you blog regularly, are all of the keywords that you’re targeting in your blog posts getting your blog posts found on page one of Google? Of course not! Unless your website and blog have thousands of authoritative, relevant inbound linking domains, it’s inevitable that only a small percentage will rank highly – no matter how awesome and valuable the content is! So how do you give your blog posts a second chance to make it to page one (besides buying Google Ads traffic)? Make a screencast, with a slide for each key point, which presents the blog content in a multimedia format. When you upload the screencast video to YouTube, you’ll get a second chance to reach page one of the search results. And when you embed the screencast video in your blog post, you’ll dramatically increase your chance of blog readers and screencast viewers having the reaction, “Wow! Very, very helpful! What else do they have to say?”

So now you know what holds most MSPs back from experimenting with video: You don’t need the talent of George Clooney or Jennifer Aniston. You simply need to share useful, relevant, remarkable information.

What kinds of managed services video content have you produced? And what kinds of results have you achieved? In the comments section below, let us know your tips, hints, trials, and tribulations.

And to learn where video content creation fits in with other managed service provider marketing and sales acceleration strategies, especially if you also support SaaS and IaaS, be sure to enroll now in our free 7-day eCourse: Go-to-Market Strategy 101 for B2B SaaS Startups and Scaleups.