3. Cloud and the marketing minefield:
Is the channel’s marketing
approach rising to
the challenge?
Ian Moyse – Sales Director
@imoyse
www.ianmoyse.co.uk
Danielle Campbell
Marketing Manager
uk.linkedin.com/in/daniellecampbell1
4. Ian Moyse : Validity To Speak
26 yrs+ in IT, 9yrs in IT Security, 7yrs in Cloud
Sales Director, Workbooks.com, Cloud CRM Vendor
Sit on Board of Eurocloud UK
Sit on Governance Board of Cloud Industry Forum (CIF)
Advisory Board Member SaaSMAX
Advisor to Board for Evoco ‘Journey2Cloud’
Named by TalkinCloud one of the global top 200 cloud channel experts in 2011
Listed on the MSPMentor global top 250 list for 2011
Named ‘Channelnomics 2011 Influencer of the year for Europe’
Won ‘European Channel Personality of the year 2011’
Awarded global ‘AllBusiness Sales AllStar Award for 2010
Thought Leader to ‘Compare The Cloud’
Comptia Cloud Essentials Exam Certified 2012
Worldwide SMB Nation 150 Channel Influencers List 2012, 2013
Approved Speaker Schoolspeakers.co.uk
5. Agenda
How The IT World Is
Changing & End User
Realitiies
Cloud Overhyped and
Mismarketed
So What Does All This Mean
For Marketeers ?
Marketing The Cloud
6. How The IT World Is Changing
(& How IT Is Changing The World)
14. End User Cloud Choice & Adoption
“Enterprises are already devoting as much as one-third of their budgets to cloud
services, and they are planning to increase cloud spending by as much as 15 percent
CARG. At that rate, enterprises will have the bulk of their IT functions in the cloud
within the next three years” IDC 2012
18. End User Concerns
o Security still at #1!
Security
Privacy
Sovereignty
Internet access
Reliability
Some 70% of firms that have
implemented cloud services have seen
cost savings and higher levels of
productivity
KPMG's The cloud takes shape report.
24. What Customers Are Hearing From Cloud Providers Messaging
Everything should go cloud
Its right for everyone, for everything
Cloud solves all your needs
Cloud is always best no matter what
You can‟t live without this
“Cloud is big data”
“Cloud is storage”
„Everybody on‟
„Everyone In‟
………………………………….
27. Marketing the cloud – Is it really any different?
What we’ll cover
How has the growth of cloud affected how we market it?
Cutting through the Jargon and clarity of message.
Knowing your market and better still knowing where to find them.
The marketing activities you shouldn‟t ignore.
29. Cloud and the marketing minefield
Cloud overhyped and „mis-marketed‟ leading to different perceptions
of what the cloud really is. But it‟s within our power to take control
Q. How can we avoid getting lost in the confusion?
A. Clarity of message.
Marketing is the business function responsible for
creating messaging and as such has control of
how the „business‟ speaks to customers,
prospects and positions itself in the market.
Effective message marketing is key to helping
cloud businesses grow and reducing the
confusion over cloud definitions.
31. The importance of clarity
• The power of „Cloud’
• Whilst „Cloud‟ is certainly an attractive premise for customers and
potential partners it is important that when using the term as a
marketing function we use it correctly and with clarity.
• Transparency is key – customers want to
be able to quickly and easily understand
your offering and USPs.
33. The importance of clarity
Are you getting through?
• Does your homepage and Introductory collateral state explicitly what you
do?
• Have you got content available for both the channel and end user
customers? Does this content effectively communicate your offering to
each party in a way that they both understand and is attractive to their
needs?
• Have your sales team got a clear and concise elevator pitch sewn
up?
• Is everyone answering a phone in your business able to sum up
the essence of what you do in one or two sentences max?
34. The importance of clarity
The thin line between clarity and dumbing down
Cut the jargon.
Use technical expertise to instil confidence in the buyer, not
a bragging mechanism. People are proud – confusion or
lack of understanding looses deals. So if one party has to
swallow their pride….
Know your audience - make sure you are having the
appropriate discussions and sending the correct
messaging to the relevant person.
Kit out your collateral pot for all
36. Take advantage of the Clouds growing popularity to
get more from your messaging.
As cloud adoption hits the mass market - marketing and advertising
options have not only increased but specific niche exposure
opportunities have emerged.
37. Target the opportunities that work for you
• Research then research some more.
• Identify your target market and where possible segment further if
possible for more precise marketing.
• Sift out all opportunities not just the big players.
• Where‟s your competition hanging out?
• Where‟s your customer‟s hanging out?
38. Knowing your market and understanding your audience is absolutely
crucial!
Who‟s attention are you trying to attract and does your website and other
marketing effectively address this audience?
Question - Can you break down your target market into more segmented
groups in order to market to them more effectively?
39. Getting Specific
Effectiveness by Channel: What promotional channels or referring
sources are sending you the most traffic?
Focus on long-term results, not short-term traffic spurts that you
might get from news coverage or press releases.
41. Marketing the Cloud
Marketing practices in the channel are changing.
The increase in cloud adoption is undoubtedly a factor but this is dually a
result of channel marketers embracing more modern marketing
approaches.
The modern marketer is
intuitively inbound –
focusing on getting found
online. Search engines,
social media, mobile
platforms and more.
42. Marketing the Cloud
Social Media Marketing: The Benefit of Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and
so on in marketing practice.
Benefits
• Budget friendly
• Easy Customer interaction
• Real-time information and
conversations
• Follow industry conversations & trends
• Size doesn‟t matter (to an extent)
• Brand growth through mass exposure
• Potential for brand new target market
• Fresh, modern approach
• Increase traffic impact
43. Marketing the Cloud
*Warning*
Simply creating a social presence is not enough. Do not underestimate the
man hours required and it is imperative you have a plan. You are often
competing with professional tweeters!
Do not just force an untrained current staff member to create a profile and
publish the odd piece of content. Engagement is key.
LinkedIn: The Social Network for Business Professionals
• Linkedin Groups
• Linkedin Answers
44. Marketing the Cloud
Monitoring Social Media
An important part of leveraging social media for business is to
understand what conversations are happening online related to your
industry and recognizing where you should respond.
•
Google Alerts
• Twitter
• Google Reader and RSS Feeds
• Facebook Insights
• Analytics software
45. Marketing the Cloud
Blogging and Content
Blogging and creating other content like ebooks and webinars are
powerful ways to help more of the right people discover your business
online.
Blogging Power
• An Attention-Grabbing Article Title.
• Well Written & Formatted Text.
• Images/Videos.
• Links.
• Call-to-Action.
46. Marketing the Cloud
Other Types of Content
While it‟s a great place to start, blog content isn‟t the only type of content
you can be creating.
Consider producing longer-form content items like ebooks, whitepapers,
or research reports that can be used as lead generation offers for your
calls-to-action.
Non-text based offerings such as how-to videos, webinars, slideshows
and infographics help capture attention.
Sound like a lot of work? It doesn‟t have to be
47. Marketing the Cloud
Optimise your website - SEO
SEO can be divided into two separate categories:
• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO
Never underestimate the importance of
your Meta Description!
An often overlooked opportunity to attract
visitors from search. Interestingly, it does
not directly influence search engine
rankings. Nevertheless, it is a good practice
to include keywords in your meta
description.
48. Marketing the Cloud
Key word strategy
More and more consumers are finding businesses online through search
engines. How do they find them? keywords
49. Marketing the Cloud
The here and now
Traffic: Overall, how many people are coming to your website?
Leads: How much of this traffic are you converting into leads?
Customers: How many sales did you close this month?
Customer Acquisition Cost: How much are you investing to draw in each
new customer?
New vs. Repeat Visitors: Of your overall traffic, how many visitors are
returning to your site, and how many new people are finding you?
50. Marketing the Cloud
Steps for Improvement
So to recap - While we all aim for long-term goals in online marketing,
there are some short-term steps you should take to get there.
• Keywords
• On-Page SEO
• Conversions
• Content Strategy
• Social Media Promotions
• Lead Nurturing
51. Marketing to the channel:
Never underestimate the importance
of partner love
52. Partner Love
Channel marketing objective : Gaining loyalty, support and respect
among your partners and their customers.
How? Business integrity, support, good technology yes. But marketing
has the ability to bring this a step further and turn a commercial
relationship into a true partnership.
Make their life easier
The easier you make it to market
and sell your service… the more
your partners will market and sell it.
Gaining share of mind is key. You
want to be the hassle-free,
approachable and reliable option in
their portfolio.
53. Partner Love
What coinage have you to offer?
- If your partners have limited marketing resources, it is probably an
idea to develop a marketing resource library that partners can use
to quickly and easily get your product information in front of customers.
- Bespoke sales/marketing
campaigns. Provide
text, Imagery, assets so they don‟t
have to. Why wouldn‟t they blast
that to all their customers?
- Want to get on a partners website fast
and with the messaging you want the
market to see? Then write it.
54. Partner Love
Personalisation
“Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest
and most important sound in any language"
- Dale Carnegie
- Know your customers.
- Names on communication.
- Note their key anniversary dates
- Personal milestones
55. “You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you
have to play better than anyone else.”
- Albert Einstein
57. Cloud is here to stay
It‟s a tern generic over hyped term that in itself doesn‟t sell a solution
There is a lot of misunderstanding, scepticism and fear our there still
We need to be selling the positive business outcome‟s not the
technology?
Marketing plays a crucial role in quashing cloud misunderstandings and
ensuring clarity of your business message
For channel marketing to be effective knowing your market, your audience
and further segmentation where possible is highly advisable.
The benefits and ROI achievable through inbound and online marketing
practices are undeniable. Channel marketing is no exception
Summary
59. Cloud and the marketing minefield:
Is the channel’s marketing
approach rising to
the challenge?
Ian Moyse – Sales Director
@imoyse
www.ianmoyse.co.uk
Danielle Campbell
Marketing Manager
uk.linkedin.com/in/daniellecampbell1
Editor's Notes
Cloud and the marketing minefield: As Cloud adoption continues to grow is channel marketing really rising to the challenge?Draft Synopsis (213 words) Cloud adoption is huge for the channel right now – fact. From 2008 to 2013 there has been an impressive 25% growth in cloud sales and it shows no signs of slowing anytime soon. The question is, what affect is this growth having on channel marketing approaches and have you adopted your strategy not only to make the most from this opportunity but to overcome any issues it poses?Cloud as a term has been incredibly hyped and over-marketed in the past 24 months and as such it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate ourselves using such a generic term. However the name ‘cloud’ does undeniably carry some weight and credibility, with the word’s ability to quickly identify what can be seen as a trend setting use of technology. So, if you are marketing cloud solutions in today’s industry what do you need to know? What approaches should you consider and do the same old marketing techniques and approaches really work or do they need a modern twist? Are customer buying profiles the same and if not how do you market successfully to these changes? This impactful session will deliver insight into the realities of end user and channel buying approaches, their feelings towards cloud and what marketing approaches will best gain their attention.
Ian Moyse has over 25 years of experience in the IT Sector, with nine of these specialising in security and over 23 years of channel experience Starting as a Systems Programmer at IBM in the mainframe environment, he has held senior positions in both large and smaller organisations including Senior Vice President for EMEA at CA and Managing Director of several UK companies. For the last 7 years he has been focused in Cloud Computing and has become a thought leader in this arena. Moyse has been keynote speaker at many events and runs one of the largest Channel Groups worldwide on LinkedIn. He sits on the board of Eurocloud UK and the Governance Board of the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) and in early 2012 was appointed to the advisory board of SaaSMAX. Moyse was recently awarded global ‘AllBusiness Sales AllStar Award for 2010’ and The ‘European Channel Personality of the Year Award for 2011’ and was named by TalkinCloud as one of the global top 200 cloud channel experts in 2011 and listed on the MSPMentor top 250 list for 2011 which tracks the world's top managed services experts, entrepreneurs and executives. He has also recently been awarded the accolade of Channelnomics 2011 Influencer of the year for Europe. In early 2012 Ian was the first in the UK to pass the CompTIA Cloud Essentials specialty certification exam, was appointed as a Thought Leader to Compare The Cloud and was listed in the worldwide SMB Nation 150 Channel Influencers list and appointed as Cloud Advisory Director to the Board of Evoco, a client transformation specialist company. Widely published on subjects of Cloud, Internet Security and Channel matters and an author at sites such ashttp://www.comparethecloud.net/blog/thought-leaders/, http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/categories/crm, http://www.celebritydialogue.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=28&Itemid=122For those wishing to connect to this Technology Cloud Thought Leader his linkedin profile is at www.ianmoyse.co.uk and he can be followed on Twitter @imoyse SourcesChannel Personality of the year 2011 - http://www.realwire.com/releases/IT-Europa-Winners-of-European-IT-Excellence-Awards-announcedChannelnomics 2011 Influencer of the year for Europe - http://channelnomics.com/2012/01/09/hp-channelnomics-2011-influencer-year/?utm_source=Channelnomics+Contact+Us&utm_campaign=c4afe1e636-Weekly_eNewsletter_01_10_2012&utm_medium=emailAllBusiness Sales AllStar Award for 2010 - http://topsalesawards.com/index_2010.phpTop 200 cloud channel experts in 2011 - http://www.talkincloud.com/top-200-cloud-channel-experts-follow-friday-june-17/MSPMentor top 250 list for 2011 - http://www.mspmentor.net/mspmentor-250-page-7-of-our-2011-edition/Eurocloud UK Board Member - http://www.eurocloud.org.uk/_m1707/about-usMember of Cloud Industry Forum Governance Board - http://www.cloudindustryforum.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93:ian-moyse-eurocloud&catid=17:board-members&Itemid=56SaaSMax Advisory Board - http://www.saasmax.com/about-us/managementCloud Advisory Director to Evoco - http://www.evoco.co.uk/evoco-news/evoco-taps-leading-cloud-expert-as-cloud-advisory-director Compare The Cloud Thought Leader - http://www.comparethecloud.net/1586/workbooks-crm-partners-with-compare-the-cloud/ SMB 150 2012 - http://www.smbnation.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=entry&id=402&Itemid=124
So – Effective message marketing is key to not only helping cloud businesses grow but reducing the confusion over cloud definitions and ensuring your customers know exactly what you do! Say it on the tin, what your selling should not be an elaborate secret.
The word ‘cloud’ seems to be tagged on to every new service hitting the channel as a term that automatically is expected to garner attention and be synonymous with modern IT.
Cut the jargon – technical expertise is undoubtedly impressive and helps instil confidence in the buyer and display the professionalism and knowledge of the business and team. However, make sure you are having the appropriate discussions and sending the correct messaging to the relevant person. Don’t make a less technically minded customer feel inferior by bombarding them with tech jargon they don’t understand. Likewise simplifying information can have a patronising effect on those customers who want the reassurance of detail and advance technical information - My advice is to ensure your collateral pot caters appropriately for your various customer types – don’t assume the same set of pdfs will work for everyone and prepare both customer facing and partner facing versions as well as market specific types.
Getting your messaging on target is the first check – then its making sure that messaging is turning up in the right places for maximum return
As cloud adoption hits the mass market there has been a huge increase in the number of avenues and platforms available for marketing and advertising options. This has also brought with it more niche exposure opportunities, so thankfully the days of throwing enough mud in the hope that some sticks is well and truly behind us – or at least they should be!
What opportunities are out there – Don’t dismiss the growers (shoestring) There’s an option for every budget – Ad/Editorial/Comments
Getting your messaging on target is the first check – then its making sure that messaging is turning up in the right places for maximum return
Modern marketing has shifted towards inbound and online – and as we witness the results and benefits it makes sense for the channel to follow suit
The social media phenomenon is going nowhere first so if you haven’t already started incorporating it into your marketing plans then I suggest you do.
Engagement is key – remember it is very unlikely you are speaking to your entire target market but rather the segment of that market (as I mentioned before) that are active on social media and interested in regular, short company updates and the ability to interact with you – so make the most of that. LinkedIn has two major features that are of particular use to businesses and their employees. The first feature you should examine is the Groups feature. The Groups feature allows LinkedIn users to create and participate in discussions around a topic within LinkedIn. Groups can be a great way to make potential business connections, but can also be a great place to share relevant blog content. LinkedIn Answers The second feature, LinkedIn Answers, allows you to find people publicly stating they have a specific problem or need that your product or service would solve. Identifying these questions and responding with a resources or a blog article of yours that answers that person‟s need can offer a great marketing opportunity for your business. Ultimately, you can generate high-quality traffic to your blog from LinkedIn Answers, and get some really qualified leads as well
An important part of leveraging social media for business is to understand what conversations are happening online related to your industry and recognizing where you should respond. Here are some great tools you can use to easily monitor your business and industry mentions in social media: Google Alerts: Set up multiple Google Alerts for your company, brand, products, leaders, industry terms, etc. The alerts will get delivered directly to your email inbox and is a great way to help you track mentions of your brand and relevant keywords on the web on news sites, in blogs, etc. Twitter: Monitor mentions of your brand on Twitter with tools like Twitter Search or HootSuite. Google Reader and RSS Feeds: Set up RSS feeds in Google Reader of searches of your brand or industry keywords in other popular social media sites such as Flickr, Digg, Delicious, etc. Scan the results in your reader daily for mentions. Facebook Insights: Stay on top of and participate in discussions occurring on your company‟s Facebook Fan Page. Use your Fan Page‟s Facebook Insights Dashboard (found in the left sidebar when you’re on your page as an admin) to show you stats such as fan growth
An Attention-Grabbing Article Title: Because your blog articles title is the first thing people will see Well Written & Formatted Text: The body of your article should be well-written and formatted in a way that makes it easy to read. Images/Videos: Relevant multimedia content can make a blog article more memorable and fun to read. Links: Include in-text links to relevant content. These can also point to landing pages to help you generate more leads for your content. Call-to-Action: Each and every blog article you publish should include a relevant call-to-action at the bottom of the article to help boost lead generation
Be smart – develop ‘key’ assets that can be reused for various functions – The whitepaper – that can be a PR piece –that then can be a blog and then can be used as a customer asset.
On-page SEO refers to how well your website's content is presented to search engines. This can often be improved immediately. Off-page SEO refers to your site‟s overall “authority” on the web, which is determined by what other websites say about your site. This can take time to improveMeta description is the text seen as the description of a site in Google search. These words attract a searcher’s attention and indicate if a search result is particularly relevant to the searcher. Web pages often include metadata in the form ofmeta tags. Description and keywords meta tags are commonly used to describe the Web page's content. Alt text for imahes is also key – esp if you’ve cool infographics
More and more consumers are finding businesses online through search engines. How do they find them? keywords. Fortunately, you can take advantage of this consumer habit by optimizing your website around the keywords that are relevant to your business and which keywords consumers are using to find you online. This will increase your chances of getting found by people searching with those keywords, which will drive more and better quality traffic to your business‟ website. Channel keywords – Cloud - numbers
In order to see where you are now and for any changes to have a big impact, you need to monitor several key factors and create a measuring mark that you can refer back to. Again, you’ll need analytics software to do this. Before diving into how to improve them, let’s first discuss what the relevant metrics are
Keywords: Try new keywords or variations of keywords to see if they help you get found better. Since each page on your site can incorporate different keywords, there are tons of ways to do this. On-Page SEO: See if changing a simple on-page factor can help boost visits. Examples of on-page factors are page title, meta description, and headings. As a simple test, try changing the page title of one of your web pages to see if you generate more traffic. Conversions: Try new things with your conversion forms or landing pages. For example, try making the conversion form more prominently located on your web page. Content Strategy: Determine which content is generating the most traffic. This could be an opportunity to either focus more on that kind of content, or refine your delivery of other content. Social Media Promotions: Evaluate which social media channels are generating the most site visitors and leads. Again, you can either focus on your successful social media platforms, or try improving your performance in your less successful ones. Lead Nurturing: Maybe you're sending emails too frequently -- or not frequently enough. Maybe the calls-to-action in your email
Getting your messaging on target is the first check – then its making sure that messaging is turning up in the right places for maximum return
Love your partner and make sure they love you back – that’s the marketing roleThe equation’s simple - the easier you make it to market and sell your service… the more your partner will market and sell it. To gain share of mind with your partners, make their life easier and ensure your service is the simplest way for their team to hit their targets.
You can’t discount any further on price – or you simply don’t want to devalue your product by going on a market price war – think outside of the box. Coinage isn’t all about money per se. What else can you offer partners that will help them out, show your support, put you above competitors – inhouse designer? Voiceover nominee, branded collateral, spot on the website, newsletter blast, physical support at show - Bespoke sales/marketing campaigns – Prep mailer templates in advance that allow for edits and are easily tailored to a variety of needs. Provide text, Imagery, assets so they don’t have to. Why wouldn’t they blast that to all their customers? – Videos, pre-used content or reports (back to key assets) Images - Want to get on a partners website fast and with the messaging you want the market to see? Then write it. Create bespoke content for your partner’s website and deliver this along with a selection of relevant images in whatever format makes it easier for them to upload. SEO value
Know your customers, Regular updates, Names on mailers, Note their key anniversary dates (New baby bib)The members only clubLogos, tshirts, help supportMilestones where appropriate – leverage social media relationship to gain insights or account manager information – birthday, new baby, sympathy
Created by Ian Moyse – Webroot EMEA Channel Director
