Profit from Windows XP End of Support with MailerMailer
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This document outlines strategies for IT companies to profit from the end of support for Windows XP in April 2014. It recommends developing educational content on the risks clients face if they do not upgrade from XP. This content should be used to generate leads through newsletters, seminars, and paid advertising. Existing clients and contacts should be surveyed to identify opportunities. All leads should be followed up regularly and added to email lists. The goal is to help clients upgrade from XP while growing the IT company's business in the process.
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Profit from Windows XP End of Support with MailerMailer
- 1. How to Profit from Windows XP End-of-Support and help clients avoid major downtime! Raj Khera Partner, MailerMailer @presstacular +1-301-825-5658
- 2. About Raj Khera Engineer turned business guy CEO, GovCon – sold in 1999 Partner, FilterPoint – sold in 2009 Partner, MoreBusiness.com Now CEO MailerMailer Presstacular – marketing tool for IT companies Author #1 Amazon Bestseller: IT Marketing Crash Course Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 3. The Plan Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 4. April 8, 2014: Bye Bye XP http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/end-support-help Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 5. “XP” searches on Google Increase predicted: Feb 2014 Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 6. Predicted “XP” searches on Google Increase February 2014, then steady decline after April 2014 Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 7. 3 out of 4 IT pros must still support XP XP still on 1/3 of all Windows PCs Firms that are not ready for Windows XP end-of-life could face compliance risks Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC 7
- 8. 3 out of 4 IT pros must still support XP XP still on 1/3 of all Windows PCs Firms not ready for Windows XP endof-life could face compliance risks Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC 8
- 9. Who Will Get There First? Leverage the timing and Wait and Grow Your Business Watch Others Grow ? Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC 9
- 10. Pick the low hanging fruit first, then climb the tree 1. Clients 2. Current contacts 3. People you don’t know (yet) Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 11. How do you make your buying decisions? Find People You Trust Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 12. Before People Buy Anything… Awareness Education Identification Trust Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 13. Develop Educational Material What will happen if you don’t upgrade from XP How to Choose a Windows Migration Strategy Office365 vs. Windows 7/8/8.1 What do to before throwing out an old PC White paper: How WindowsXP End of Support Will Impact Your Business Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 14. Scan Your Existing Client Base Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 15. Create a newsletter with your articles, or licensed articles Send to clients and contacts Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 16. White paper: How WindowsXP End of Support Will Impact Your Business • Ideal incentive to contact you • Simultaneously pre-qualifies leads Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 17. Or License the Content You Need Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 18. Repurpose Content Into a Seminar Make a presentation from key bullet points in your articles and white paper Print out copies of your white paper to give away as an incentive for attending Contact local associations and chambers Be a guest speaker Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 19. Say this: Hi, this is <name> from <company>. I have a presentation that your members might really like to see. Microsoft is ending support for WindowsXP in early April – one-third of all PC users still run XP. We’re seeing many medical practices being affected by this because it can put HIPAA compliance at risk. My presentation talks about the risks and helps chart a path for your members to make sure they are not adversely impacted. Would you be interested in a presentation about this topic at your next meeting? Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC 19
- 20. Do this: Offer the white paper or guide as an incentive for registering Collect business cards in exchange for the white paper Score each contact A/B/C Add your new contacts to your email list Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 21. Import your contacts directly from Autotask (or upload a file) Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 22. Live reports show who is likely ready for a sales call Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 23. Other Ways to Find XP Leads Pay per click advertising, remarketing Google, Facebook, LinkedIn Association web sites and newsletters Offer guide as incentive Must direct visitor to specific page with contact form DO NOT direct visitor to home page Be sure to collect contact information Follow up regularly Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC 23
- 24. Follow Up 36% of leads are never followed up - Forbes Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 25. What is your 2014 target growth? How will you get there? Einstein’s definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC
- 26. Don’t miss this opportunity Start marketing now before your competitors beat you to the punch! Presentation Slides © 2014 MailerMailer LLC 26
- 27. The IT Marketing Crash Course: How to Get Clients for Your Technology Business www.ITMarketingBook.com +1-301-825-5658
- 28. Blog + Newsletter + Analytics = More Business www.presstacular.com 800-475-1415
Notes de l'éditeur
- <read>
- Today, I’m going to show you a step by step strategy to close more sales from the XP end of support opportunity. This is time sensitive. So if you wait, someone else is going to get that business, possibly even from your own clients. Take some notes – we’ll also send out a link to the recording of this webinar next week.
- Now, here’s some information you already know – starting April 8: no more updates, increased security risks, all that stuff. The screenshot in blue is the header for Microsoft’s WindowsXP end of support web page. That page goes on to provide links for people to test which version of Windows they are running, because as you know many non-technical people might not know what version they are running.
- There are people clearly searching for XP related information. This chart is from Google Trends. Google Trends ranks searches on Google from 0 to 100, 100 being considered one of the most popular search terms. Let me zoom in on the bottom right corner which has the most recent data for the terms “XP” and “WindowsXP”.
- The dashed trend line shows Google’s prediction for these search terms through the end of 2014. Notice the blip after the dot? You can see here that Google is actually expecting an increase in people looking for XP-related content in February. They’re already predicting it. After that, they expect to see a steady decline in searches for XP as the year goes on, with the biggest decline after April, which makes sense.
- The press is certainly writing about it… take a look these fairly recent headlines <read>. So if you do anything related to HIPAA, which is a US law governing disclosure of medical information, or if your IT company targets healthcare, this is very important. All pretty big warnings. But do you notice something here?
- All of these are technical publications. These are the magazines you and I read, not your customers. It’s pretty unlikely that a local doctor’s office is going to pick up a copy of InformationWeek. I mean, that’s why they hire you – you’re the technology expert. In other words, the people who need to know about this the most are the ones who probably don’t know about it. And what that means is that whoever educates them about it first, and clearly explains the risks of not upgrading, has a higher chance of converting them into a client.
- So who is going to educate them? You? Which means you will probably get more business from this opportunity. Or someone else? If you wait and don’t take any action, you’ll probably just watch others grow their business because they acted quickly.
- Let’s dive in. There are 3 layers of opportunities here - and multiple marketing tactics. <read> Each of these layers goes farther outside your closest circle. Obviously, the easiest place to start is with your existing clients. If you’ve already been able to convince all of them to move beyond XP, then your next easiest target is your rolodex – your current contacts. After that, it’s the people you haven’t met - yet. I’ll show you how to get in front of them, too.
- As we talk about how to get your WindowsXP migration and other IT services in front of prospects, think about what it takes someone to sell you something. How to you decide what to buy and who to buy it from? What criteria do you use in making your buying decisions – for any product or service. If you’re like me, you buy from people you trust. You don’t always buy based on price– in fact, that’s often a silly way to buy something because you’re not looking at the true value, right? So it’s up to you to show value. And the fastest way to show value is to show that you’re an expert. Think about this for a minute: if someone were to talk about themselves all the time, about how good they are, all the stuff they’ve done and can do, would you consider them an expert? Probably not--not unless they came from a very strong referral source. But if someone were to educate you, help you think through the issues at hand, without being “salesy”, you would probably start building some level of trust with that person, right?
- Your prospects are no different. Here’s how most people make buying decisions. They first become aware that they have a need, that there is a problem that they need to solve. But they don’t jump from becoming aware about an issue to making a purchase. They first try to educate themselves. When they identify good sources of education, that builds trust in their minds – because they feel like they are making an informed decision. That’s when they become ready to buy. People buy from those they trust.This means your process for selling XP migration or anything else for that matter should focus on educating a prospect first. That will build the trust you need to make a sale.
- So what kind of educational material am I talking about? These are tips,guides and other useful information that people need to help them understand why they should upgrade from Windows XP and what happens if they don’t. Here are some examples of useful and timely articles: <read first 4>. The “old PC” one is important because a prospect’s hardware might be too old to support an upgrade. So, instead of telling somebody you’ve got a special on Dell desktops, teach them what they need to do before they throw out an old PC. Teach them about the risks of not upgrading from XP. Guide them to a evaluate Office365 – which, by the way, many of your prospects probably never heard of – or even if they have heard of it, they don’t know what it is or what it can do. Here’s another idea: one of the best things you can do is to come up with a complete XP transition document, a white paper that talks about how Windows XP end of support can impact their business. In many cases, whether the prospect reads that full white paper or not is almost irrelevant. The fact that the white paper came from you portrays your company as the expert, the reliable source. Even if they’re not ready to buy your services immediately, you become the “go to” person for information about Windows XP.
- Let’s start with your clients and current contacts – the lowest hanging fruit. You probably touch base with your clients on a regular basis. If not – a little word of caution – you should be touching them in one form or another – phone call, email, face to face meeting – at least once a month. Because if you’re not constantly in front of them, that leaves room for someone else to sneak in. So, as Len mentioned earlier, use tools to identify who in your existing client base is still using XP. This screenshot is from N-Able’s tool which identifies who those users are. You can cross reference this information with your contacts in Autotask. Once you have this initial list, you have a fantastic starting point. Don’t worry – if you don’t have an RMM tool or customer management tool, there are still other things you can do and I’ll get to those as we talk about climbing up the tree. It’s just that tools make your life a lot easier. You wouldn’t try to repair the inside of a computer without a screwdriver. The more complex your operation, the more sophisticated your tools. They save you so much time. And you really should be doing work that is worth your time, not something an assistant can do for $10/hour.
- So the next up is to take that content that you produced and create an email newsletter from it. You can send the newsletter yourself or you can use a tool to help you out. Here’s an example of a newsletter created using our tool,Presstacular. The really neat thing about this tool is that all of the content is already included. You don’t have to write anything. It also includes a custom built template that matches your brand and web site. Send that newsletter containing your XP-specific information to your clients and contacts. Put in links back to your contact form.
- Think back for a moment to the white paper concept I mentioned earlier. If you’re in a prospect meeting, chances are that the prospect is talking to several vendors – you’re just one of them. So there are probably other people pitching them XP migration services. If you walked into that meeting and said “Here’s a white paper on how Windows XP end of support will impact your business. I know you’re probably talking to other companies, So regardless of whether you select us or someone else to help you with this critical issue, this white paper will help answer a lot of questions you might have.” What have you just done here? You just pulled ahead of the pack. All of the other vendors that this prospect is talking to are likely just pitching their services, which means they’re probably going to compete on price. You, on the other hand, can now compete on value – you just gave them value. Even if the prospect didn’t read the white paper, just the fact that they got something so thorough from you positions you as the expert.
- As a side note, next month all of our clients will get a copy of that white paper – ready to use with their logo and contact info. They can use right away to start selling XP migration services. So instead of spending your valuable time writing, you might consider licensing the content. You can use our large library of IT articles to educate your clients and prospects. When you think about the time and effort that it would take for you to draft articles – let alone a white paper – about Windows XP security risks or migration paths and so on, think of what that time translates into in terms of your own hourly rate. If you pay yourself more than minimum-wage, it’s actually cheaper to use a tool like this. Plus, all of the work is done for you. You just pick the articles want to use, make some edits if you want, and you’re done in about 10-15 minutes.
- Now that you’ve picked the lowest hanging fruit, you are ready to climb the tree. You can take the white paper with the articles that you’ve got and pull out some key bullet points to make a PowerPoint presentation. You can also print out copies of your white paper to give away as an incentive for people who attend your presentation. So the next step is to get in front of people who would be interested in this. Here’s how: contact your local Chamber of Commerce and various other professional associations. They are always looking for good speakers at events. For example if you target doctors or dentists, there’s probably a meeting coming up where you could come in and talk about technology issues related to XP– and you don’t have to limit that presentation just to XP. You could talk about data security, backup or other technology issues that affect medical practices, for example. That would be a pretty interesting topic for such an association. So look them up and call their events manager and try to get on their schedule. You can even mention how timely this topic is because XP end of support occurs on April 8 and one-third of all PCs still run XP – that should get their attention.
- Here’s an example of what you can say to that association to book a presentation.There’s a lot of text here. I’ll leave this up for a minute see you can jot it down.<read>. If you want, you can even email this to your local associations and then follow up with a call. Do whatever you can to get booked as a speaker at as many places as you can. Once you have your presentation down, you can repuprose it for almost any type of organization – law firms, retail, accounting firms, you name it.
- The people who attend an event like this will be good prospects for you. Don’t go there empty handed. In the description that the association uses to promote the event, mention that attendees will get a copy of your white paper or guide – maybe call it a guide since that might sound less intimidating. And don’t just hand it out. Leave it at your podium and say “if anyone would like a copy of the guide, please come up after the presentation.” Ask for a fair trade: your guide for their business card. You can even say you’re conserving paper and that you’ll send them the electronic version. That gives you a good reason to follow up afterwards. Now, and this is very important: make sure you add all of the new contacts you collect to your contact management tool and email list. If you meet new prospects and don’t stay in touch, they’ll forget about you very quickly – and worse, you’ll forget about them. Just because someone isn’t “sales ready” right now, doesn’t mean they won’t buy from you down the road. So it’s very important to stay in touch. When you add them to your email list, you can stay in touch without being a pest. Again – tools can make this really, really easy.
- If you’re an Autotask customer, you can use our brand-new feature that allows you to import your list directly from Autotask. Just click a button and Presstacular will import your list for you. You can also upload a text or csv file of your contacts. Then, after you send your educational material to stay in touch, you’ll see some valuable metrics that can help you close more sales faster. Here’s an example.
- To improve your chances of closing a sale, you want to see who is opening your newsletter, who is clicking the articles- and which ones they are reading, and who is most likely ready for a sales call. There’s only so much time in day. You want to spend that time talking to people who are likely ready to buy your services. This screenshot is from Presstacularand it shows you exactly who to call and what they’re interested in so you know how to start the conversation.
- Other ways to get leads can include advertising. This topic is a whole webinar in itself so I’ll just touch on it briefly here. If you do choose to go this route, be aware of a few things: 1) avoid TV/radio/print ads unless you have a big budget for testing. I have yet to see these avenues work for small businesses. 2) instead, use a measureable medium like pay per click ads. Try it on the major ad networks like Google’s Adwords program. You can try linkedin and facebook as part of your test. You can easily blow your budget if you don’t know what you’re doing. There are all sorts of controls that you can put in place, like keyword targeting, ad frequency, time of day – a bunch of things. Your ad can be the guide you have on XP, something like “Download this guide on XP” so you can collect their contact info. Also look into ads on association web sites and newsletters. They might be cheaper and more targeted. Maybe you can cut a deal with the association you are speaking at. Make sure you follow up fast and stay in touch regularly.
- This sounds so silly. It really does. Follow up with every lead. I was shocked when I read this statistic. It was reported by Forbes magazine last year. As crazy as it sounds, 36% of leads are never followed up. If you do all of the things I mentioned in this webinar, you will definitely generate leads – in fact, you could fill your pipeline in 4 to 8 weeks. That’s a big investment that you don’t want to let fall by the wayside. So please, make sure you have a way to follow up with everyone – that you have a process or system in place so that you don’t accidentally drop the ball. Because – just like your own experience when you want to talk to someone – if they don’t respond pretty quickly, what do you do? You go talk to someone else. So put together a process that ensures timely follow up.
- Think about how much you want your business to grow this year. Can you reach your 2014 goal by doing the same things you’ve always done. If you get business only by word of mouth and you’re happy with your current pace of growth, then there’s probably not much to change. But if you want to pick up the pace and accelerate your growth, then remember Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So, do something different. I’ve given you several ideas and talked about some tools that can help you make this happen. Now it’s up to you.
- You saw the most recent Google trend lines I showed earlier. Start your marketing efforts now and you will grow your business. If you wait till April, you will get less business. Don’t be left watching other MSPs grow instead of yours.
- If you’d like some help, my book, The IT Marketing Crash Course, is available on Amazon. I think the Kindle version is currently still at $3 USD and it will give you a lot of insight into positioning your company for 2014. Also, we’re about to release a new free guide called “Your 12 Month IT Marketing Plan” which will have a Word document of a month-by-month marketing plan that you can edit. If you’re not already on my email list and would like a copy, just sign up on this web site, ITMarketingBook.com and we’ll alert you as soon as it is released.
- If you want more information on our marketing tool that contains pre-written IT articles that you can click to use and edit, please visit www.presstacular.com – there’s a button to request a demo and we’d be happy to show you how to accelerate your marketing. And as I mentioned, next month our clients are going to get a copy of an in-depth white paper on XP to use in their sales process. Thank you very much for joining us today. I think we have time for a few questions.