Like every facet of life, marketing evolves with technology—and nothing typifies recent shifts more aptly than the ongoing cloud revolution. While traditional marketing strategies, such as print ads, direct mail and radio advertisements, are still relevant among some older demographics, marketers continue to leverage cloud computing capabilities and tools to bolster the effectiveness of their digital marketing initiatives, strategies and campaigns to reach larger audiences. Cloud computing also provides marketers with advanced tools and features, like real-time data analytics and emerging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, helping marketers enhance operations, reduce costs and drive more personalized customer experiences.
Data Analytics and Insights
Data is rightly called the currency of the modern world. Without reliable, regularly updated and well-maintained data, marketers can’t gain a deeper understanding of customers’ needs and preferences. Thankfully, cloud computing (namely, various cloud platforms) gives marketers quick and convenient access to customer information, helping them shape digital marketing efforts according to audiences or individuals to improve the customer experience and increase loyalty.
Cloud-based platforms also provide actionable analytics, allowing marketers to determine the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of their digital marketing campaigns. For example, these platforms let marketers compare customer engagement (conversation rate, churn rate, NPS, etc.) between multiple digital campaigns and uncover discrepancies. Likewise, cloud computing permits marketers to access other cloud-based tools to measure ROI and SEO to make well-informed decisions, further optimizing digital content and initiatives.
Boost Marketing Efficiency and Promote Collaboration
Through the tools and solutions residing on cloud computing platforms, marketers can be more efficient, helping businesses reduce siloed teams and promote seamless collaboration on digital marketing campaigns. Consider Google Docs, where users can work on a document simultaneously rather than taking turns. Plus, these cloud-based tools are compatible with any device connected to the internet. This level of unified teamwork accelerates marketing projects, truncating time-consuming back-and-forth editing and approval processes.
Moreover, the greater accessibility of these cloud-based solutions enables marketers to be more cost- and time-effective, as they can access marketing material and make edits from the convenience of their mobile devices. Similarly, cloud computing platforms reduce costs associated with on-site hardware. Indeed, because a cloud service provider hosts IT resources and applications off-site (meaning they are not stored physically in a local server room or data center), costs connected to repairs and maintenance essentially disappear.
Cloud-Based Solutions and AI/ML Integrations
Cloud-based solutions make work easier and more effective for digital marketers. For example, A/B testing and voice search tools allow marketers to test and select the better version of different content strategies or campaigns and optimize content for voice searches, increasing reach. Marketers can also use cloud-based marketing services to scale and manage digital content. Likewise, social media dashboards enable marketers to track the performance of campaigns in real time, while cloud-based marketing tools infuse automation and insights for higher conversion rates.
Beyond these tools, new technologies, like AI and ML, can get integrated into cloud-based marketing platforms empowering marketers to automate repetitive tasks, increase productivity and craft more sophisticated and personalized digital campaigns. In fact, by using cloud computing and AI to automate manual and monotonous (but essential) processes, marketers can have more time to focus on value-added objectives like fostering relationships with customers and problem-solving. AI can also recognize patterns and extract insights from customer data significantly faster than humans, helping marketers ascertain the success of their digital campaigns with minimal involvement.
Additionally, marketers can use ML-driven software applications to learn from historical training data and enhance current marketing efforts. ML can also help marketers improve customer segmentation and content classification — it can even generate branded collaterals. Nevertheless, there are considerable barriers to implementing ML capabilities into enterprise applications, such as the cost and expertise required to build and train such models, including the challenges associated with purchasing, operating and deploying specialized hardware. Fortunately, cloud computing allows marketers to utilize ML capabilities without shouldering these technical burdens. In fact, cloud computing improves ML, making it more accessible, scalable and cost-effective while eliminating the need for investments in physical hardware.
Challenges and Considerations of Adopting Cloud Computing
Despite the invaluable benefits of adopting cloud computing to enrich marketing efforts, there are important considerations one must bear in mind when deploying. Notably, there are concerns surrounding data privacy due to the sensitive customer and sales information stored in the cloud. Furthermore, cloud computing requires specialized skills and expertise to manage and optimize operations successfully.
From a security standpoint, preventing data breaches and deterring attackers has less to do with the cloud and more with proper management and oversight — in other words, following best practices and finding the right-fit cloud security solutions. And when it comes to the skills and know-how required to oversee, deploy and improve cloud-based operations, companies can outsource such proficiencies to the cloud service provider.
Another challenge is the need for network resilience, as any disruption in connectivity can lead to major delays and potentially bring sales and marketing campaigns to a screeching halt. Some best practices companies use to create more resilient cloud-based solutions are continuous testing and monitoring, redundant workloads and Out of Band management. It is also helpful to pair Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) with Backup as a Service (BaaS) to ensure recoverability after an outage.
Regardless of the approach, it is paramount that businesses recognize that outages are inevitable and that true resiliency, or the ability to respond quickly to a network failure, is much more practical and effective than trying in vain to avoid downtime altogether.
Cloud-Based Tools Are Essential for Digital Marketers
As the cloud revolution accelerates, more digital marketers will continue to leverage cloud-based tools and integrate emerging technologies like AI and ML to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns, deliver personalized customer experiences and decrease costs. Whether it’s convenient access to data and analytics or enhanced collaboration, cloud computing is a fundamental technology for any marketer looking to compete for the attention of today’s digital native customers.