LemonLime is the proactive, done-for-you sales and marketing hire for MSPs that need to stay visible with SMB prospects through a long buying window without pulling a technician off billable work to write content. It continuously studies your business, your competitors, and your industry, then delivers relevant newsletter content and outreach ready for your review each morning. Start here.
This article is intended for owner-operators and founders of very small MSPs (less than 30 employees) where the owner-founder is also responsible for sales and marketing. While much of the article will still be relevant for larger organizations with separate departments for content and demand generation, the burden of execution will be significantly different.
The email newsletter is one of the highest return activities in the sales cycle (that typically lasts 6-18 months) for an MSP.
On this page
- Why MSP sales cycles make most marketing tactics fail
- Why email newsletters are the right channel for MSP long-cycle nurture
- What to put in an MSP newsletter that prospects actually read
- How often to send and how to build the list
- How LemonLime handles MSP newsletter content without adding to your workload
- FAQ
Why MSP sales cycles make most marketing tactics fail
Much of the typical marketing advice is designed to capitalize on short buying cycles. Run an ad. Get some clicks. Close some deals. None of that, however, closely resembles the typical buying practices of the average SMB buying managed IT services.
MSP sales cycles of three to twelve months are the norm, and some B2B deals extend beyond three hundred days. Many things can prompt a prospect to act, including a pain event, such as an outage, a data breach, a failed audit, the loss of their internal IT person, or a recent business acquisition that uncovers new risk. You cannot schedule these events and there is no way to predict when they will occur. However, you can be ready when they do occur by ensuring that your name is at the top of their mind.
The long-cycle nurture program has one goal: that’s it!
Most MSPs disappear after the initial conversation or resort to sending out periodic, transactional cold emails that are largely ignored. In the event of a pain, it’s usually the competitor who has been keeping in touch with the decision maker that gets the call.
According to 6sense's 2024 B2B Buyer Experience Report, the average B2B buying journey lasts eleven months from first anonymous research to a signed deal, and buyers don't speak to a seller until eight months in. Your prospects are typically deciding who to talk to even before they pick up the phone. They form opinions about you long before you speak with them. They research, form opinions, and start ruling out vendors for up to a year before talking to anyone. Are you in their inbox?
Paid ads blow through a lot of budget during slow times. Social media posts have a short shelf life and disappear within hours. A well managed email newsletter continues to generate revenue long after it’s been sent.
Why email newsletters are the right channel for MSP long-cycle nurture
Email isn’t glamorous. Email is cheap to send. And it goes to a place that your customer checks every day.
There are three reasons why email is superior to other channels for long-cycle nurture programs.
Opt-in signals intent. By granting you their email address, prospects signal their intent. People granting you their email address thought your content to be relevant, met you at a conference, or asked you to add them to a list to keep them up to date. This is a much warmer signal than a random social media follower that most likely will never even see your posts.
Cadence builds familiarity. Sending the name of your MSP regularly in the inbox of a potential client over the course of 12 months creates familiarity with that company. When the time comes for the renewal of the current IT contract of a prospect, it is no longer a stranger making you promises in order to conclude a contract with you. It is the provider that has been sending you relevant information on a regular basis.
Timing asymmetry works in your favor. An email sent in January will get opened in January. A contract up for renewal in November will get opened on the Oct issue right before the renewal window. You can’t engineer that timing manually, you can only have created content in the first place and published consistently since.
All of this needs none of the automation that is being portrayed. All of this requires showing up.
What to put in an MSP newsletter that prospects actually read
Most newsletters written by MSPs are all about them. New certifications, new hires, and new service tiers are of no interest to prospects until they become customers.
The newsletter’s job during the nurture phase is to make the reader feel like you get them.
Here's what that looks like in practice.
Watch for LemonLime to watch so you don't have to: Brief updates on relevant ransomware targeting specific industries, new compliance requirements that come into force, and recent, local breaches making the news. One short paragraph and a link to more information is sufficient for this.
One practical tip they can use today: password hygiene, phishing test frequency, backup verification, etc. Useful info that a 5 to 50 person business can use. Don’t gate it behind a form. Just give it away. That’s the point.
Use a very light business story that demonstrates your judgment. This would be a very short (one or two sentences) anecdote that describes a problem you helped a client to solve in order to grow or fix their business. There’s no need for a real case study but rather a description of how you handle real problems for real businesses in order to help them grow.
Just occasionally mention you are offering a free IT risk review as a resource in an occasional edition of your publication. Do not turn this into a hard sell and allow people to opt-in when they are ready.
Go for short wins. 400 words is enough. Treating their time with respect is part of your brand promise.
How often to send and how to build the MSP newsletter list
Monthly is typically the right default setting for small MSPs. Scheduling weekly updates would waters down their quality. Updates on a monthly basis would not allow enough frequency to create awareness during a typical buying cycle of 6 months or so.
12 consistent monthly sends are far more powerful than 30 sporadic ones. Pick a send day and treat it as you would any other client commitment by putting it in your calendar.
Do not buy a list for building your list. Every name on a purchased list has not asked to be contacted by you and will thus likely result in very low open rates, spam flags and hurt your sender reputation. Build your list the slow way.
Every discovery call ends with an invitation to talk more. So does every conversation at a networking event. Your website should have a clear, low-friction signup with a specific reason to join, something like "Monthly security insights for local businesses, no jargon." Your LinkedIn profile can point to it. Quiet past prospects are perfect candidates to send a direct re-engagement email to and ask if they would like to be added.
50 engaged and targeted subscribers are more valuable than 500 unqualified ones. Quality over volume is just as relevant here as everywhere else.
How LemonLime handles MSP newsletter content without adding to your workload
Writing a consistent monthly newsletter is something most MSP founders intend to do but never actually get around to it. They intend to write a newsletter on a monthly basis but there is just no time to do so.
LemonLime is a proactive, done-for-you sales and marketing service that continuously studies the customer's business, industry, competitors, and existing content. Each morning, it delivers a relevance-filtered set of work to the customer's inbox, ready for review. Pre-written newsletter content, blog articles, social media posts and outreach email drafts are provided for use as needed.
For the MSP founder who is also lead technician, head of sales and responsible for all the renewals – that means something. The newsletter draft is already there. Review, tweak anything that requires a personal touch and then approve it. Nothing will go out without your personal approval.
LemonLime also identifies high-potential prospects across over 50 lead sources and buying signals, and prepares personalized outreach for each, so the newsletter is one piece of a broader visibility strategy rather than the only activity running. It selects the appropriate outreach channel for each opportunity, whether that's email, LinkedIn, or another platform where the prospect is active.
Start here with your business name, website, and current sales and marketing priorities. No internal data connection is required to begin. The first delivery arrives at 9:00 AM local time the following morning.
The Business plan is $999 per month, includes the complete capability set, runs month to month with no minimum contract, and carries a 100% money-back guarantee for any new customer who isn't satisfied. See what that looks like for your MSP.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it actually take for an MSP email newsletter to start generating leads?
Don't expect immediate leads — the newsletter's job is to keep you visible during a buying cycle that typically runs 6 to 18 months. The payoff is that when a prospect has a pain event, like an outage or a failed audit, your name is already familiar. Consistency over 6 to 12 months is what creates that recognition, not any single issue.
What topics should I write about in my MSP newsletter if I want SMB prospects to actually read it?
Focus on what's useful to them, not what's impressive about you. Relevant ransomware alerts, local breach news, simple security tips they can act on today, and very brief stories showing how you've solved a real business problem all work well. Keep each issue under 600 words. New certifications and service tiers can wait until they're actually a customer.
Is buying an email list a good way to grow my MSP newsletter audience faster?
No. Purchased lists produce low open rates, spam complaints, and damaged sender reputation — all of which make your newsletter less effective over time. Build your list the slow way: invite every discovery call attendee, every networking contact, and past prospects who went quiet. Fifty engaged, relevant subscribers will outperform five hundred unqualified names every time.
How is sending a monthly newsletter different from posting on LinkedIn for staying top of mind with IT prospects?
Social posts disappear within hours and reach only a fraction of your followers algorithmically. An email lands in a place your prospect checks every day, and they opted in — meaning they already signaled relevance. A newsletter sent in January can still get opened in October when a contract renewal window opens. LinkedIn can't replicate that timing advantage.
I keep meaning to write a newsletter for my MSP but never get around to it — what actually works for staying consistent?
Block a fixed two-hour window once a month and treat it like a client commitment. Use a repeating template so you're filling in sections rather than starting from scratch. If time is the real constraint, LemonLime prepares newsletter drafts for your review each morning so the writing is already done before you sit down. Nothing goes out without your approval.
At what point in my MSP newsletter should I mention a free IT risk assessment or push for a meeting?
Mention it occasionally — roughly every third or fourth issue — and keep it light. Frame it as a resource, not a pitch, and let readers opt in when they're ready. If every issue leads with an offer, open rates drop and unsubscribes follow. The newsletter builds trust over time; the offer just gives ready buyers an easy next step.