How to Sell Managed Backup Services

As IT providers adopt new managed services and make adjustments to their existing offerings, they may face challenges in communicating their value to the right audience. Lead generation is important for every Managed Service Provider, but these prospects only result in sales when the right message, positioning, and sales processes are put into action. 
There are countless ways to generate new leads for your sales team, and we’ll explore several of them in upcoming blog posts. In this article, however, we’ll focus specifically on strengthening the parts of your sales and marketing process that consistently turn qualified prospects into closed deals for your local and cloud backup services.

Identifying Your Client

Do you currently work with anyone who simply says they want services? If so, you’ve probably experienced a lot of wasted time in the sales process. Even when a deal eventually closes, you may find yourself with customers who are difficult to support, slow to make decisions, or misaligned with your Backup-as-a-Service model.

By clearly defining who YOU want to work with, your marketing and sales efforts become more efficient and predictable. The result is less swimming upstream and more long-lasting, mutually beneficial customer relationships for your local and cloud backup services. There’s no need to take a wild guess at your demographic—you can define it with intention.

• What types of customers are naturally attracted to you and your service model?
• Do they fall within a certain niche, vertical, or compliance-driven industry?
• What are the customer’s pains, goals, operational risks, and technical requirements?
• Most importantly, how do they make buying decisions, and who is involved in that process?

Refining Your Message

With a clear picture of your ideal client’s goals and risks, it becomes much easier to align your marketing message, sales conversations, and even your service offerings. Your sales team should understand your Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS and BDR) value proposition inside and out, and be able to communicate it confidently in a concise, memorable elevator pitch.

In many cases, prospects will also need to be educated on why a managed backup service delivers more value than a traditional, self-managed backup solution. Early in the conversation, focus less on technical specifications and more on business impact: the real cost of downtime, the value of uptime, and how your service protects revenue, compliance, and reputation. You are not just selling a backup product—you are safeguarding their ongoing operations and profitability.

Emphasize the peace of mind and predictable protection you provide, as this sense of security is often your most powerful differentiator. At the same time, be prepared to clearly articulate what sets your offering apart from other MSPs, whether it’s your proactive monitoring, faster recovery times, compliance expertise, or the strength of your local and cloud backup platform.

Broadcasting Your Message

How many contacts with a prospect does it take to close a sale? It could take 8 or more touchpoints, depending on the scenario, the size of the deal, and how urgently they feel the pain of their current backup solution.

The key to an eventual payoff is your messaging consistency over time. Is an automatic follow-up plan in place that continually reinforces your value and clearly demonstrates how you protect their data, operations, and compliance posture? You could be looking at dozens of touches over months, or even years, if they are under contract with another MSP or locked into a legacy backup platform. Your ongoing marketing campaign should be delivering:

• Regular emails (at least monthly) that educate and provide practical value.
• Helpful videos that explain key concepts, common risks, and recovery scenarios.
• Invitations to your webinars, lunch-and-learns, or local events.
• Proof of your success (case studies, testimonials, reviews, and success metrics).
• Regular calls to check in on their satisfaction and evolving needs.
• Offers for a backup analysis, technical environment health checkup, or security and compliance consultation.

You should be able to estimate when their contract expires or when renewals are likely to occur so you can position your marketing message and sales actions to align with that timing. When your expertise is already top of mind at that moment, you greatly increase the likelihood of converting a long-term prospect into a managed backup customer.

Establishing Trust

We recently explored this topic in more depth in a blog post on how to build a trusting relationship with new sales prospects. For most MSPs, your highest-quality leads will come as referrals from existing customers who have experienced consistently excellent service and reliable recovery outcomes. Organizations naturally prefer to work with providers that are already trusted within their network and who have demonstrated real value over time.

Whenever possible, invest in building strong, visible networks within your target niches, professional communities, and compliance-driven industries. Participate in local and virtual groups where your clients are active, share practical backup and recovery insights, and be proactive in helping them solve problems before they turn into outages. Over time, this positions you as a go-to data protection resource—and makes it far more likely that satisfied customers will confidently refer you to their peers.

Closing The Sale

Before diving deep into the technical side, there should be a mutual understanding between you and the customer that the need for managed backup exists in the first place. The customer should know their hourly cost of downtime, and how long their business can survive without access to data.

When there is agreement on a need, the remaining questions become more logistical. Will it meet their technical, budgetary, and support needs? Make it easy for this new customer to say ‘yes’. Offer simple pricing that matches how your customers do business, as well as straightforward vendor contracts. Clearly outlining what each party in the relationship is responsible for sets the expectations that will facilitate a healthy, long-lasting relationship.

When it comes to closing new business for your managed backup services, consistency in your marketing is critical. Continually reinforce your message of managed backup expertise to a clearly defined audience. By positioning yourself as a trusted data protection and security resource at the right time, you significantly increase your chances of winning new business.

NovaBACKUP is here to support your managed backup offering at every stage—from planning and deployment to ongoing optimization. Connect with a NovaBACKUP Managed Backup expert today.

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