Simply put, Cloud Marketing is traditional marketing + Software as a Service. It's all supported by a third party devoted to the maintenance of the platform.

What is Cloud Marketing?

The nuance of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) has changed the way businesses manage their infrastructures in innumerable ways. By outsourcing corporate software/hardware infrastructure and the manpower necessary to develop and maintain it, companies are able to incur fewer overhead costs. Thus, it is easier for companies to focus more on day-to-day business activities instead of internal upkeep. Additionally, the SaaS provider is able to allocate all its time and resources to customizing the infrastructure to best fit the company. The end result is a better infrastructure and a reduced cost—more for less. So why not apply that same philosophy to marketing products through the partner channel?

Cloud Marketing is traditional marketing + Software as a Service. It consists of migrating all marketing assets to exist online in customized consoles. Placing these assets online makes them easy for all parties involved to create, modify, use and share. From a channel perspective, no one (VAR nor vendor) has to have experience or training with the technology that supports them. It’s all supported by a third party devoted to the maintenance of the platform.

If your partners are in need of training on how best to sell your products, a cloud training site may be the best choice. This site, customized for each partner based on their level of certification, has video tutorials, whitepapers and marketing tips. The idea is that partners with limited expertise in marketing, but high experience within the industry, are able to use advertising and marketing resources developed at the vendor level. These resources are high quality and strategically branded by the vendor’s product managers and marketing team for channel partners to use.

If your partners have limited marketing resources, it is probably a better idea to develop a cloud marketing resource library that partners can use to quickly and easily get your product information in front of customers.

The partners benefit because they get instant, customized help and expertise from the vendor that is based on market research and brand quality. The vendor benefits because partners are communicating a succinct, cohesive, and consistent message at all customer touch points.

Breakdown of Cloud Marketing:

Marketing Content Creators channel through Innovative Marketing and Traditional Marketing. These marketing mediums go to a Channel Marketing Platform. The platform has two-way communication with the Marketing Content Creators.

The Cloud Marketing Platform channels through, and has two-way communication with, the Marketing Team. The Marketers then present the information to the Audience.