You’re a marketer, and you want to make a case for a cloud marketing solution to be implemented into your company’s overall marketing strategy. However, you’re faced with the daunting task of proposing a cloud marketing solution to the C-suite. Business decisions are often made strictly on return-on-investment (ROI) capabilities and it’s your job to not only prove there will be ROI advancements, but also share with the C-suite why cloud marketing should be implemented from a non-monetary standpoint as well.
The key in this situation is to develop a flawless cloud marketing proposal that:
- Identifies a need
- Defines what cloud marketing is and what it can deliver
- Addresses potential concerns
- Shows benefits
- Provides supporting facts/evidence
Identify the Need for the Cloud
The first question that the proposing marketer might face is why do we need this? Before jumping straight into the individual benefits of the cloud, make it simple. Use some attention grabbing phrases like “ease of collaboration,” “breaking down barriers,” and “real-time analysis” to catch their attention. Point out that traditional marketing solutions remain on-premise, and cloud solutions can be accessed by any involved party from any location, which is especially valuable as more and more people seem to be on-the-go.
Define what Cloud Marketing is and what it can deliver
Next, it’s time to present the C-suite with a working definition of what exactly cloud marketing is and what it can specifically deliver to the company. Cloud marketing is the combination of traditional marketing and Software as a Service (SaaS) that brings the ultimate flexibility of on demand technologies with the ability to customize and configure applications to support complex marketing requirements. Flexibility is a key touch-point, as marketers should be able to choose from hybrid models that store data on-premise while keeping execution capabilities on the cloud. This flexibility also allows the solution to be scaled up or down to account for seasonal demands or other temporary requirements.
Cloud marketing can complement traditional marketing and provide real-time digital analysis, which is becoming a “must have” as online data gathered through social marketing has become a gold mine for marketers.
Identify Specific Benefits
After you’ve proven what cloud marketing can provide on a broad-level, dive into the specific benefits of a cloud marketing solution. Adobe Campaign’s cloud marketing solution offers a few key benefits that could assist in the proposal process:
- Low initial investment and cost for sending every month
- Ideal tactical solution for the start-up and experimentation phases
- No IT team to mobilize, nor infrastructure IT to be spread/minimal maintenance
- No impact on the consumption of Internet bandwidth
Two out of three of these points touch on monetary values (a key point in a successful proposal), the low initial investment for start-up and experimentation as well as the elimination of a need for IT mobilization/on-going maintenance will likely help answer the cost concerns the C-suite may have.
Supporting Data: The Cloud is here to Stay
According to Ed Anderson, research director at Gartner, the cloud market is expanding. “The continued growth of the cloud services market will result from the adoption of cloud services for production systems and workloads, in addition to the development and testing scenarios that have led as the most prominent use case for public cloud services to date. Evidence of this growth is found in the increasing demand for cloud services from end-user organizations, met by an increased supply of cloud services from suppliers.”
Final thoughts
When it comes time to prepare a proposal for the C-suite, be sure to come to the table ready to address the needs of the company, how the cloud marketing solution will help, specific benefits, data safety, and some supporting data to show the industry is starting to expect cloud solutions. Don’t be left behind, develop a plan and come to the table with a proposal that will force the C-suite’s hand.
Image source: Transworld Business
