The cloud. Probably one of the words that had the biggest addition in meaning in the past decade or so. It’s not just about lying in a field and identifying which cloud looks like a dog anymore. The cloud in MarTech terms now refers to a digital integrated space where team members can collaborate together, access the same tools and data from anywhere, and stop emailing each other spreadsheets with “FINAL_v7” in the filename.

One Cloud to Rule Them All

It’s not just one cloud for a particular department either. Solution companies have developed powerful “clouds” that the whole company can use. Sales, operations, marketing, customer service and finance can now all jump on the same system, yay for customer experience! No more chasing a colleague in another department for a report, no more conflicting versions of the truth, and no more customers having to repeat their story to three different teams.

The way companies operate now with the help of cloud-based technologies has brought improvements to productivity, efficiency and accuracy, regardless of industry. Updates happen in real time, teams can work from anywhere, and scaling up no longer means buying a room full of servers. What used to require serious IT investment is now a subscription and a login.

Better Data, Better Campaigns

In a data-rich world, there’s no doubt that marketing campaigns are now mostly data-driven. With the use of cloud-based marketing technology, marketers can segment that data even better, creating highly personalised and targeted campaigns for a very selective group of people.

Think about what that means in practice. Instead of blasting one message to an entire mailing list and hoping for the best, marketers can build audiences around behaviour, purchase history, engagement and preferences, all pulled from a single connected system. The campaign that reaches a customer feels relevant because, for once, it actually is. And because everything lives in the cloud, the results feed straight back in, so every campaign makes the next one a little smarter.

Customer Experience Is Everyone’s Job Now

Here’s the part that often gets overlooked. Since the entire company often has access to one system, the goal of delivering a great customer experience and journey is now spread across multiple departments, and not just solely marketing and sales.

When customer service can see the campaign a customer responded to, when finance can see the plan behind a budget request, and when operations can see demand building before it arrives, the whole business starts pulling in the same direction. The customer doesn’t experience your departments, after all. They experience your company. Cloud-based systems are quietly making sure it behaves like one.

So no, the cloud isn’t just for daydreaming anymore. For marketers, it might be the most practical thing in the sky.

By: Matthew Lin