MDF, or Market Development Funds, are offered by most vendors in the MSP space. However, the vast majority of vendors like this to be their best kept secret.
No matter the size of your MSP, you are spending lots of money with these vendors. You should proactively reach out to vendors and ask for MDF for funds that you can allocate elsewhere.
Communicate With Vendors
Create a list of every vendor you use and list them on greatest to least. Don’t over complicated this. Write the company, your rep, and columns for how many times and when you reached out.
Contact the rep and describe the marketing strategy you are planning the next quarter. If you have a true marketing campaign, you will have activity in every avenue of marketing.
Ask your rep, what do you see getting approved the most? Is your organization more likely to approve the webinar or an in-person event? Have you seen telemarketing get approved? This insight will help you a lot when requesting MDF.
Keep track of the communication and request MDF from every vendor, every quarter.
You should hear back pretty quickly if your request has been approved.
Submit Your Results and Proof
You will have to submit your results and invoices to show that this was completed. The vendor will then reimburse you for those activities.
This is actually very simple.
Results can be anything you add with that vendor that quarter…. Seriously. You have created and marketed content geared towards selling this product or service, and your clients and prospects have seen it. Any sales that you added that quarter with the help of the content you created will work. You are showing them you are growing sales.
Now if you didn’t make any sales this quarter, there’s not much you can do there. It does not necessarily mean they will deny future requests, but it could make it harder with that particular vendor.
You also want to include the graphics, videos, and advertising you used to show proof that there was a marketing campaign.
Allocate Your Funds
By partnering with vendors, whether that be sales or a specific marketing campaign, you can receive MDF funds to effectively bolster the marketing efforts of your business.
Make sure to keep track of everything so you can consistently be awarded MDF. Better yet, have your marketing coordinator handle this as part of their scorecard.
With these MDF funds, you’ll be able to allocate more money into your advertising and drive new leads and clients. This is money that you need to be taking advantage of.
With any new client coming in the door, its inevitable to have a conversation about cloud services. If you need a provider you can trust, reach out to us.
Are You An MSP? You NEED To Take Advantage of MDF Funds.
