29
Sep
Marketing your MSP – from Start to the Next Bit (there is no finish!)
Hi there, I’m delighted and flattered that Zen Software have asked me to write a guest blog, and we thought that some simple steps to get started on marketing your MSP business would be a topic that worked for both of us, and hopefully you, too!
Firstly…if you’re not doing ‘much’ (or even ‘any’!) marketing, you’re not alone! In my previous roles of Head of Marketing for Ingram Micro and Network Group as well as in the work I do now, I meet a lot of MSPs. Almost without exception they tell me sheepishly “I know I should be doing more (for which I read ‘some’) marketing”. Or “Here’s my card, but don’t look at the website, it’s being redesigned.” Or if they’re being honest: “I just don’t know where to start!”.
So, here’s where to start. And by the end of this blog post, you’ll have no excuse not to – so be prepared! ☺
In 
One the biggest challenges you're likely to come across if you're considering upgrading from 
Unless you've been living on a remote island for the last couple of weeks, and also covering up your Windows task bar every time you use your computer, you probably know that Windows 10 is now available to the masses.
Yes, Microsoft's new flagship desktop O/S is upon us in all of it's glory. It'll take some time to see whether the hype was justified, and of course to discover the new features (and 
It's not often we promote events that aren't actually our own on the blog, however this particular one is national , it's free and it's aimed specifically at IT support companies and MSP's like you who want to make your business more profitable.
It's also the brainchild of the highly acclaimed 
As an archiving solution for individuals, MailStore Home is a hidden gem, and one we're guilty of not giving enough exposure here on the blog.
In a nutshell, MailStore Home solves two of the biggest problems you're likely to face as a home user with a personal email account(s):
Will MailStore alert me when a job fails?
Of the many queries I see as a member of the MailStore support team here at Zen Software, this is one of the more common ones.
Unfortunately, for the time being at least, this isn't something you can do from within the software but fear not - the reason for my post is that there is a workaround.
EDIT: Email reporting was introduced in v10.1 - 
Today sees the latest point release in the roadmap of German developer MailStore, and in addition to a long list of fixes there are a couple of interesting new developments which have caught our collective Zen Software eye.
Version 9.2's 'juicy bits' that I'll talk a little more about in this post include:
If you're struggling to manage your mailbox sizes, or just need to keep email for long periods for compliance reasons, you may well have found yourself looking around for an archiving solution of some kind.
There are plenty out there, with many sharing some similarities, however it's the technical approach of the various products that's a good method for distinguishing them.
Some of the vendors you'll come across will employ the use of a technology known as 'stubbing'. As MailStore Server doesn't, in this post I'll take a brief look at what it is, and why it's German developers have decided against stubbing and instead chosen an alternative route.
In order for any users to log in to email archiving software MailStore Server, a local 'MailStore' user account needs to exist.
You could simply just manually create users, entering usernames and passwords individually. However for any installation with more than a handful of users, as you can probably imagine, that can soon end up becoming a pain.
For this reason, MailStore includes the directory services feature to synchronise local accounts with an external user list which is what I'm going to cover in this post.