An Interview With Sarah Turner 
Sarah Turner is a creative marketer at IT Backbone. They support cloud migration, infrastructure overhauls and build anything that their clients need.
A data-led decision-maker, she was part of the team that helped IT Backbone win the “Most Innovative Marketing and Sales Campaign” category of the MSP awards, hosted by SuperOps.
The Winning Marketing Strategy
Sarah explained that she and her team had put together a multi-pronged marketing campaign, which combined direct mail, emails and phone calls. “We also introduced video to the process, so we could make the follow-ups really personalised.
“For instance, if someone had a meeting scheduled that didn’t go ahead, we wanted to know why. Sending a video message can help them to reply. I want us to stand out from the businesses who approach marketing more broadly – they throw things together to see what sticks.”
“We really focus on the customer journey, so when I put together our submission, I wanted to come up with a visual way of showing what we did. A written summary wasn’t going to be interesting enough. So I made a video that showed our story.
“Part of the campaign was to send out slide decks with personalised information, which clients loved so much that they shared them on social media. I included some of those in my video. I thought it was helpful to show the campaign and the feedback, along with our results and learnings.”
What a Customer First Approach Looks Like
For Sarah and IT Backbone, everything comes down to brand values. “If your brand values are not customer first, you can’t fake it. It needs to be inherent and top-down in everything you do across the business.
“I believe that it’s something that needs to be lived every day, but that’s only possible if everybody is living it too. Because we do it, our clients say they trust us and understand their business. We look at the problem and how we help solve it, how they want to approach it and the outcome they’re after. We’re not just selling them stuff.”
Tools to Run and Measure a Marketing Campaign
Sarah shared just some of the tools she uses for her marketing campaigns, including HubSpot, which serves as their CRM. She adds that it’s great for reporting, and lets you establish trends and see where touchpoints are working.
“I use Canva a lot, particularly to make visuals that I want to share with the rest of the business where I don’t need to go into so much detail. One example is our marketing roadmaps, which are one-page guides with easy-to-understand overviews. So for example, I produced our marketing roadmaps in Canva. And I used InVideo for our award submission.
Sarah explains that as she’s data-led, it’s important for her to understand and interpret that data. “I tend to make decisions using both qualitative and quantitative data. That lets me really evaluate the success or failure of a campaign, and why things worked.
“We use a tool called Hot Jar – you put some code onto a landing page which then records user behaviour on that page. It gives you heat maps of where the mouse went. And it measures rage clicks!”
The SuperOps Awards Process
Sarah says she’s a big fan of the SuperOps content, because it’s valuable, not sales. It’s easier to warm to a brand, she says when you feel like there’s a real person creating content.
She saw the MSP awards mentioned on LinkedIn and found the application process easy. “I wanted to appeal to the judging panel and stand out. And because the category included examples of innovation, it made sense to create a video rather than a written document.”
One benefit of winning the award is that it shows the company that they’re doing well and on the right track. “It’s great to have that recognition from such prestigious people in the industry. And it’s real validation that what we do works and is something to be proud of.”
The Challenges and Successes of Marketing in IT
Interestingly, Sarah’s biggest challenge and greatest success in marketing in the IT industry are the same. “The length of a sales journey to getting a client to sign up. But no business owner goes looking for a new MSP for fun.
“Unfortunately, it’s usually when they have a real pain point and something that has gone wrong with their existing partner. So companies aren’t necessarily primed to want to hear from you and engage with you.
“But on the other hand, when somebody does engage, it’s really exciting. Or when they respond to your marketing, or let you know that they’ve seen your content and want to arrange a meeting. It’s so rewarding because we know that the long game is working.”
Where MSPs Go Wrong with Marketing
A very easy and common mistake is not marketing for long enough. Sarah says that an MSP might have a campaign that doesn’t seem to generate any leads, or enough to make it worthwhile.
“So the temptation is just to stop the campaign. But it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t worked, it just hasn’t worked yet. At that point, you want to switch to something else, but you’re better off persevering.
“Re-evaluate your goals and targets for the campaign, and just keep it going. Why? Because you never know when somebody is going to read your content at the right time and get in touch.”
How to Connect With Sarah Turner
- IT Backbone
- Follow IT Backbone on Twitter
- Follow IT Backbone on LinkedIn
- Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn
How to Connect With Me
- Subscribe to TubbTalk RSS feed
- Subscribe, rate and review TubbTalk in iTunes
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- Subscribe and rate TubbTalk on Spotify
- Follow TubbTalk on iHeartRadio
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Mentioned in This Episode
- Marketing CRM: HubSpot
- Design tool: Canva
- Online video editor: Invideo
- Website heatmap tool: Hotjar
- Mel Robbins Podcast
- Jay Shetty Podcast
- Book: Mel Robbins: The High 5 Habit: Take Control of Your Life with One Simple Habit
- Book: Mel Robbins: The 5 Second Rule: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Live, Love, and Speak with Courage: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage, (cover may vary)
- Feel Better, Live More podcast
- Book: Dr Rangan Chatterjee: Happy Mind, Happy Life: 10 Simple Ways to Feel Great Every Day
- Book: Dr Rangan Chatterjee: The 4 Pillar Plan: How to Relax, Eat, Move and Sleep Your Way to a Longer, Healthier Life
- Book: Nir Eyal: Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life
- Book: James Clear: Atomic Habits: the life-changing million-copy #1 bestseller
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Richard Tubb is one of the best-known experts within the global IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) community. He launched and sold his own MSP business before creating a leading MSP media and consultancy practice. Richard helps IT business owner’s take back control by freeing up their time and building a business that can run without them. He’s the author of the book “The IT Business Owner’s Survival Guide” and writer of the award-winning blog www.tubblog.co.uk
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