Mastering IT Support and Marketing Strategy | Craig Pearson from Your IT Department

Ernesto: Pathmonk is the intelligent tool for website lead generation. With increasing online competition, over 98% of website visitors don’t convert. The ability to successfully show your value proposition and support visitors in their buying journey separates you from the competition online. Pathmonk qualifies and converts leads on your website by figuring out where they are in the buying journey and influencing them in key decision moments. With relevant micro experiences like case studies, intro videos, and much more, stay relevant to your visitors and increase conversions by 50%. Add Pathmonk to your website in seconds. Let the AI do all the work and get access to 50% more qualified leads while you keep doing marketing and sales as usual. Check us on pathmonk.com. Welcome to today’s episode. Let’s talk about today’s guest. We have Craig. How are you doing today, Craig?

Craig: I’m very well, thank you. Great to speak to you.

Ernesto: It’s great to have you on today’s episode, and while you’re coming here representing Your IT Department. So, let’s kick it off with that. For our listeners to get a good understanding, can you tell us a little bit more about what it’s all about?

Craig: Yeah, we’re a managed service provider, and we’re based in the East Midlands, in the UK. We’ve got about 24 staff, based out of an office in Nottingham, which is right in the middle of the UK. We’re celebrating our 15th year this year of operation. As the name probably suggests, we’re a complete outsourced IT department for small and medium-sized businesses. So we really do everything from fixing the printer and resetting passwords, the very basic stuff, all the way through to doing the IT strategy and the budget. So realistically, for our customers, if it’s got anything to do with IT, comms, or technology in the business, we help them out with that.

Ernesto: So that way our listeners can get a good understanding of Your IT Department, what would you say is the key problem that you guys like to solve for clients?

Craig: Well, we always say we’ve got one client and we’ve got two customers within that client. The first customer is the individuals who work there. And basically, what they want is for their computer to do what they ask of it on a daily basis. So they want it to work, to be able to access the programs they need, and to send something to the printer and it prints out. And if something goes wrong, they want to be able to pick up the phone, send an email, or get on a live chat, get somebody to fix it quickly so they can get back on with their job. Our second customer within the client is the management, ownership, or the C-suite. They want the same thing as the users, but they’re also looking for a little bit more. They want to know that everything in the business is being monitored, maintained, and that major problems are being prevented from happening so it doesn’t affect their business and they don’t experience major downtime. This also includes having the business protected against cybercrime. They want to know when things might need replacing and what technology they’re not using that could make them more efficient or profitable. That’s the strategy and budget aspect. It can be quite difficult for them because it’s often about technology they don’t fully understand. So, yeah, one client, but two distinct customers within that.

Ernesto: Definitely. So, what type of clients do you work with? Is there a specific vertical segment that you guys like to focus on?

Craig: We have a real cross-section. We work with construction, manufacturing, engineering, professional services, accounting, recruitment, financial services—you name it. We’ve never gone down the niche route that some other MSPs (managed service providers) have. We really enjoy working with a variety of different businesses. What we’ve tended to find over the years is that this has helped us because we can take a solution that fixes a problem in one industry, which maybe hasn’t been thought of in another, and bring that across. So it can serve as an advantage for both us as a business and for our clients as well. We’ve always liked to work with different people in different sectors rather than just going down the route of one.

Ernesto: Okay, awesome to hear that. So, what would you say is the top client acquisition channel for you guys? How does somebody usually find out about Your IT Department?

Craig: It’s generally through our website. Digital and website has been our biggest channel since I’ve been with the business, which is about seven and a half years now. I’ve always focused on that. We invest in SEO, and I’m constantly tweaking and testing to try and improve conversions. We do get referrals from existing clients, which is a major source of new business. That’s common across our industry. It’s the baseline that most MSPs start work from. But often, businesses get stuck there. So, when I first came into the business, I asked, “Okay, we know we’re going to get a certain amount of referrals from our existing customers. Where’s the other business going to come from?” I felt at that time that if you’re going to look for somebody to help you with your IT, you’re probably going to take to your computer, get on Google, and search for something like “IT support” in your local area. We’re also starting to formalize a bit of account-based marketing this year. We’re doing that through social media, testing approaches, tweaking what works, and incorporating some cold calling, email marketing, and direct mail as well. But our main acquisition channel has been the website for seven and a half years.

Ernesto: Definitely important. Talking about the website then, Craig, are there any tools or tips that you would recommend to our listeners as far as website lead generation goes?

Craig: What we’ve tried to do with it is inject a bit of personality into the site. It’s very easy for a technology company to get sucked into using its own language rather than the language that the customer understands. Our industry is terrible for TLA’s—three-letter acronyms. We use loads of them, so we’ve really got to try and avoid doing that. So our website does a big job of translating IT into plain English and speaking the customer’s language. One interesting thing we’ve noticed, which is common across our entire industry, is that after the homepage, the second most popular page is the “Meet the Team” or “About” page. People are interested in knowing who’s delivering the service and the background of the business. At the end of the day, people still buy from people. We’ve always said that we’re a customer service business that happens to be good at technology, and it’s all about those people interactions. So, I think making the website speak to the customer is key. That can be difficult when you’re serving a breadth of industries, so we try to keep it simple.

Ernesto: Definitely. Well, let’s switch gears a little bit then, Craig. Let’s talk about you as a leader—you being the director of sales and marketing there for Your IT Department. What are some key tasks you like to focus on in your day-to-day work?

Craig: My role is pretty varied. I’m a content producer, and I spend a lot of time working on and tweaking the website. I’m currently working on a project around scroll reduction. We used to focus on how many clicks it would take for somebody to get through to a piece of information, but now we’re doing longer websites, and I’m analyzing what’s in our prime real estate—the first two and a half scrolls from the top. We analyze that through Microsoft Clarity, and we know that’s where we need to grab people. We’re focusing on putting social proof like testimonials and case studies in that area, and we’ve got a nice Google Review plugin pulling reviews onto the site. The key thing to remember is that a website is a balancing act, and it’s never finished. We’re always balancing between SEO and what the reader actually wants to see when they get there. I even have a section in my OneNote called the “Never-Ending Project,” and that’s just filled with ideas, observations, and tweaks for the website. Besides that, I’m managing the sales team, overseeing the sales process, and working on outbound campaigns. I believe consistency is key to all marketing, particularly outbound, so I’m always ensuring those stages are working properly. It’s a mix of people management and head-down time on content and website work. I split my time between the office and working from home. When I’m in the office, I focus on people management, and when I’m at home, I work on writing and content.

Ernesto: Interesting take! It’s true that working from the office often means more distractions compared to working from home. So, in the between times that you have available, how do you stay up to date with all the news and marketing trends? Is there a preferred channel you like to use?

Craig: I’m a big fan of LinkedIn. I spend quite a lot of time there. Obviously, like with any social media, there’s a lot of rubbish, but I’m a fan of curating your feed, and it can be trained to show you what’s relevant. There are some really good learning resources and individuals to follow there. I’m also doing a lot of learning around AI, especially since our clients are looking to us for thought leadership on the topic. I’m working towards a Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) award in AI Marketing and absorbing content from Microsoft. They have some great free courses and webinars on AI. Another resource I enjoy is the “Sell Better Daily” show. It’s short, practical, and filled with real examples. There’s a lot of sales content, but they also cover marketing, and I like how actionable their advice is.

Ernesto: Some great channels there for our listeners. Well, let’s jump into our next section, which is the rapid-fire question round. Are you ready for them?

Craig: Yeah, go ahead!

Ernesto: Awesome! First up, Craig, what is the last book that you read?

Craig: Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson. It’s about different personality types and how they work—or don’t work—together. The basic premise is that everyone’s an idiot except for you! It goes through the positive traits of different personality types, and then you start to see the negative traits and think, “Oh, that’s me too.” It’s been really interesting and sparked a lot of conversations.

Ernesto: Absolutely! Next up, if there were no boundaries in technology, what’s the one thing you’d want to have fixed for your role as a marketer today?

Craig: Video. I’m not that comfortable on video, so I’d love an ultra-realistic version of myself that could produce videos from text. There are tools like HeyGen, but they’re not quite there yet. I want something that looks like me, delivering a polished performance.

Ernesto: I think a lot of people would love something like that! Next question—if there’s one repetitive task you could automate, what would it be?

Craig: Honestly, I’m not sure. We’re pretty good at automating the repetitive stuff already. Being in IT, we try to automate everything we can!

Ernesto: Fair enough! Lastly, Craig, with all your experience, what’s one piece of advice you’d give yourself if you were to restart your journey as a marketer today?

Craig: I’d tell myself to specialize. I’m a generalist, and while that’s worked for me, I think if I were starting again now, I’d look to get really good in one particular area. Specialization is key. Oh, and get a dog! Some of my best ideas come when I’m out walking mine—it’s a great way to clear your mind and let ideas flow.

Ernesto: Great advice! Well, Craig, we’re coming to the end of our show, but before we wrap up, I want to give you the last word. If someone forgets everything from this interview, what’s the one thing they should remember about Your IT Department?

Craig: I’d say that we’re a customer service business that happens to be good at technology. That’s always what I’d like to leave people with.

Ernesto Quezada: Absolutely. Thanks so much for sharing that, Craig. It was a pleasure having you on today. I also want to thank our listeners for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to our next episode of Pathmonk Presents. Thanks a lot, Craig.

Craig Pearson: Thank you!