When Dave Moorman founded DynaSis in 1993, the company focused on selling Local Area Networks (LANs) to small- to medium-sized businesses in the Atlanta area. Moorman intended to capitalize on the fact that most smaller businesses were not large enough to support in-house IT staff and needed externally provided network support.
At that time, DynaSis employed an in-house marketing manager to head up the marketing program. “We went through a couple of marketing managers, and we saw how hard that was,” Moorman said. “We needed someone who could do everything and that just wasn’t happening.”
Searching for Marketing Assistance
He then launched an agency search. “When we were looking for an external agency to handle marketing, we met agencies that were great at strategy and creative. They really excelled at the ‘sexy’ parts of marketing, but they could not execute.”
Moorman then discovered that Michael Mackenzie Communications (MMC) had developed a niche marketing approach tailored to smaller businesses and that technology service providers similar to DynaSis were already using MMC for marketing strategy and execution.
“From the beginning, MMC looked at our content strategically,” Moorman said. “They used our bits of content to create integrated marketing campaigns that precisely targeted owners of small businesses. MMC generated quality content from day one, and that content positioned us as experts in IT management for smaller businesses.”
Launching the MSP Model
As DynaSis grew, Moorman’s team discovered that business owners were becoming concerned about cybersecurity and wanted to outsource the selection, installation and management of their IT infrastructure. However, owners of smaller businesses were considered “small fish” to the larger managed IT services that dominated the enterprise market at the time.
Based on those underserved market needs, DynaSis combined its existing network services and new cybersecurity capabilities into a comprehensive IT offering called Digital Veins, a managed IT services offering. DynaSis’ new comprehensive managed IT services capability allowed these business owners to partner with a provider similar in size to their own operations.
Business owners, seeing the option of delegating responsibility for infrastructure monitoring, proactive management and the upgrade process, enthusiastically embraced the concept of managed IT services.
Repositioning, More Precise Targeting Recommended
Initially DynaSis took a high-profile approach to attracting business owners by placing a series of billboards around I-285, the perimeter highway encircling Atlanta, and advertising in the programs of the Atlanta Hawks, the city’s professional basketball team. These two tactics made up the bulk of DynaSis’s marketing strategy.
“MMC Founder Jennifer Koon explained to us that while we were doing a great job reaching the thousands of people attending a Hawks game, only about 200 of those were actual prospects for our services,” Moorman said. “We saw the wisdom in that.”
MMC recommended being more precise in prospect targeting. Moorman said it was MMC that introduced the concept of account-based marketing to him and helped him implement it. Account-based efforts align sales and marketing efforts around a group of targets with the potential for maximum lifetime value, a key driver of DynaSis’ subsequent revenue growth which helped the company boost revenues quickly and steadily.
MMC suggested DynaSis focus its marketing exclusively on accounts with the highest potential lifetime value. Part of that recommendation included becoming one of the “good guys” in the market who offers something of value before engaging in sales activity. DynaSis then hosted a series of educational seminars and, later, webinars that would keep the company top of mind with its targeted account prospects. In this case, the target market, admitted neophytes in technology, valued the free advice and education DynaSis was offering.
After selecting MMC, Moorman collaborated early in the relationship to set expectations. “We knew we were not going to generate a bunch of leads this month and that shouldn’t have been the expectation,” Moorman said. “But we were upfront with them about how we’d measure their performance. For example, we tracked metrics such as new sales meetings, new client contracts and overall new monthly revenue.”
Education-first Pays Off
Taking an education-first path to sales helped DynaSis gain “trusted expert” status with prospects even before they initiated a search for a managed IT services provider. “We started gaining awareness and then came the engagement. When we followed up and sent one of our direct sales reps to call on the prospect, they already knew who we were and what we did,” Moorman said.
Moorman remains astonished that so many technology providers skip the prospect education step.
“Salespeople are expensive, and you don’t want them spending the first 15 minutes of a call explaining who you are,” Moorman said. “By doing that in advance, our sales reps could spend that valuable time getting to know the prospect’s needs. That’s a much more efficient way for them to spend their time.”
Marketing Operations Critical to Success
Moorman explained that it wasn’t just marketing assistance he had been seeking, it was marketing operations expertise as well. He explained that with other agencies it took quite a while to develop content such as articles, blog posts, e-books and white papers. Other agencies lacked the small business and IT expertise to turn out compelling first drafts of those pieces, which required Moorman to spend hours extensively rewriting the work.
After extensive rewriting, he found that other agencies rarely completed the project to his desired endpoint. “After months of going back and forth, the piece would finally be finished but the agencies never got around to posting them on our website or getting them published,” he said.
Moorman said that he was delighted to find that MMC consistently created compelling content from the first draft. For Moorman, MMC’s ability to create compelling content in the first draft saved him from investing countless hours in rewriting. “My edits to MMC’s content were minimal, mostly adding my own unique terminology,” he said. “That was not my experience in working with other agencies.”
Equally important, Moorman said, was MMC’s ability to push each content project to his desired result. “If MMC said the project would be published or posted to our site, that always happened when they said they would,” Moorman said. “Completing content projects includes distributing the content, which is basic blocking and tackling. It’s not the ‘sexy’ part of marketing but it really matters – especially to me.”
In addition to creating and posting content, Moorman lauded MMC’s deep understanding of how owners of smaller businesses make decisions. “Most of MMC’s clients are small businesses, and they work directly with owners,” he said. “MMC knows what motivates the owners of smaller businesses, and they understand how they make IT decisions.”
Together, Moorman and MMC have created and executed integrating marketing initiatives that expanded DynaSis’s awareness in the small business market. Additionally, MMC’s content-first market strategy continually advanced DynaSis’s reputation as a thought leader in the space.
Exponential Growth Leads to Acquisition
DynaSis’s significant growth attracted interest from technology companies interested in expanding their share of the managed IT services market, and DynaSis was sold to Novatech in 2019. Moorman continued with the merged entity and helped Novatech triple its managed IT services revenue. Today, the company’s exponential growth has continued its upward trajectory, posting a 2025 run rate of $25 million in IT services. From the DynaSis days to today, Novatech has continued to work with MMC.
“We selected MMC as our marketing partner 15 years ago, and we haven’t looked back,” Moorman said. “Not only is their strategy and creative on point, but they are also experts in marketing operations – in getting projects completed.”
About Novatech
Novatech, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, is an award-winning provider of business technology solutions, specializing in Managed Office Services that streamline technology for businesses nationwide. Novatech offers a comprehensive portfolio of IT, print, cloud and cybersecurity solutions, ensuring seamless technology integration so companies can focus on their core operations. As one single point of contact for all technology needs, Novatech maximizes productivity, data security and uptime, eliminating the need for multiple vendors. Committed to innovation and exceptional customer experiences, Novatech transforms how businesses manage technology, ensuring seamless operations and superior support. For more information, visit novatech.net.
