Revolutionize your business: marketing automation cloud solutions

Marketing automation refers to a mix of technologies and marketing automation tools that streamline, automate, track, and optimize marketing tasks related to core functions such as (but not limited to):

• Lead generation
• Lead nurturing
• Lead scoring
• Customer segmentation
• Increasing transaction volume and value
• Increasing customer loyalty and lifetime value
• Providing order updates (e.g., status, delays, shipping, etc.)
• Syncing omnichannel customer experiences across channels: web, social, mobile, IoT

Marketing automation can be used to connect with your target audience — prospective, new, and repeat — boost customer engagement, nurture leads throughout the customer journey across various touchpoints, and elevate your marketing strategy in multiple ways. Some inspiring examples include:

• Welcome email marketing campaigns
• New customer onboarding
• Social proof
• Requesting customer feedback
• Birthday and special event outreach
• Cross-selling and up-selling email campaigns
• Transaction-related messages and updates
• Topical and subject-matter specific content
• Cart abandonment automated emails
• Customer win-back

Marketing automation cloud uses a distributed collection of servers that host infrastructure and software, and as a result can be accessed over the Internet. There are three deployment models: public, private and hybrid.

• Public marketing automation cloud: storage, servers, applications, devices, and other resources are owned and managed by third-party cloud service providers and made available on-demand over the public internet.
• Private marketing automation cloud: resources, which can be located on-site in a data center or hosted off-site by a third-party, are used exclusively by one organization and accessed through a private network.
• Hybrid marketing automation cloud: applications are run using a mix of services, storage, and computing resources located in both public cloud and private cloud environments (including on-premise data centers).

Marketing automation platforms offer a wide range of advantages, like the ability to integrate seamlessly with CRMs like Salesforce, enabling real-time synchronization of customer data, facilitating effective segmentation and targeted marketing activities across various touchpoints, including social media and email campaigns.

Moreover, marketing automation software provides valuable insights into customer behavior and customer interactions, enabling businesses to tailor their marketing activities to meet customer needs effectively.

Marketing automation solutions serve as a game-changer both for big and small businesses. By leveraging artificial intelligence and automation workflows with the help of these user-friendly tools, big or small businesses can optimize their marketing processes, embracing data-driven decision making, and follow up with leads in a timely manner, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and retention.

The table below summarizes some of the key advantages and disadvantages of each model (note that these are not distinct to marketing automation, but apply to all cloud deployments that are used by organizations for functions such as CRM (customer relationship management), enterprise resource planning, productivity software, etc.).

A whopping 94% of organizations are using the cloud, and between 2015-22 the share of corporate data stored in the cloud doubled from 30% to 60%.

By harnessing the power of cloud technology, companies can enhance their marketing efforts, delivering personalized experiences to their target audience while automating repetitive tasks. This not only optimizes marketing strategies but also frees up valuable time for marketing teams to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Let’s take a look at the key benefits:

Increased business agility

For many organizations, the most valuable benefit of marketing automation cloud is that it dramatically increases agility and the capacity for resilience. The critical importance of this was starkly clear during the pandemic. As Harvard Business Review points out:

The enterprise of the future was always going to be data driven and nimble, but organizations once had time on their side to transform on their own schedule. The pandemic changed that. Dispersed workforces, unpredictable supply chains, and rapidly changing market dynamics caused agile ways of working to shift overnight from optional to a business imperative.

Reduced time-to-value

Marketing automation cloud lets organizations significantly shorten the time-to-value for their digital transformation. This is because:

• Environments can be provisioned in days vs. months
• There are no complexities and obstacles to block infrastructure setup and planning
• Security processes and compliance protocols are already in place (more on this when we discuss compliance in a moment).

Lower total cost of ownership (TCO)

Research by McKinsey has found that cloud-savvy leaders who have moved more than 50% of their processing workloads to the cloud are realizing two to three times greater cost savings, compared to laggards who have migrated fewer than five percent of their processing workloads.

Robust security

Interestingly, security in the cloud has shifted over the years from a concern to an asset. This is because a cloud provider’s business model depends on its demonstrated ability to ensure that their infrastructure is both secure and compliant.

Furthermore, the cloud makes it easier for organizations to adopt a DevSecOps operating model, which according to Deloitte “incorporates secure culture, practices, and tools to drive visibility, collaboration, and agility of security into each phase of the DevOps pipeline.”

Ensure compliance

The cloud enables organizations to store data in the appropriate location to meet privacy requirements (e.g., per GDPR regulations, EU customer data must be stored in EU countries). This ensures that organizations remain compliant with existing regulations and legislation and have the capacity to make adjustments as needed in the future as new rules and practices are enforced.

Scalability and flexibility: Why cloud matters

The cloud enables organizations to deliver near-uniform performance, but without purchasing new (and typically expensive) hardware. Resources can be scaled up or down in preparation for busy or slower seasons, or even automatically as needed.

The cloud can also improve performance and latency by enabling app deployment closer to users, and by taking advantage of built-in or add-on caching technologies. In addition, most cloud offerings include ongoing (24x7x365) infrastructure monitoring. When augmented with application monitoring, this can translate into extremely high uptime — in some cases as high as 99.9999%.

Driving innovation

McKinsey points out that 75% of the cloud’s predicted value is driven by boosting innovation, and not — as many people think — rooted in optimizing IT. And EY states that “cloud computing is foundational for ambitious companies wanting to future-proof their business.”

Just as there is no universal right or wrong marketing automation cloud model, there is no single “ideal” solution. There are multiple leading vendors in the $6.85 billion (USD) global marketing automation software market, which is projected to reach $15.36 billion by 2029. Ultimately, choosing the right solution should involve the following:

• Decide whether to use a cloud or on-premise deployment for digital experience platforms. Click here for some key questions and considerations.
• Refer to the previous section on the benefits of cloud-based marketing automation and use the advantages as a checklist. Ensure that any solution or vendor under consideration delivers in each area, without exception or compromise. Multiple demos with different stakeholder groups (marketing, sales, c-suite, IT, InfoSec, etc.) is vital.
• Do not overlook the immense importance of choosing a vendor that will lean forward and play in active role in ensuring success. A passive vendor is a liability, while an active partner is an asset.

Marketing automation is not just a powerful tool; it's a fundamental aspect of modern business operations. By revolutionizing your business with marketing automation solutions, you can streamline processes, personalize experiences, and ultimately, drive growth and success.

Many organizations around the world that want to minimize their cost of infrastructure ownership, risk management effort, security management effort, and scaling marketing effort are focusing on a 100% managed cloud solution — and are turning their attention to Sitecore Managed Cloud.

Sitecore Managed Cloud enables organizations to:

• Always be on: Never miss a beat and always be there for customers thanks to comprehensive monitoring and 24x7x365 support to maintain 99.9% availability.
• Reduce TCO: Sitecore Managed Cloud combines cost-effectiveness, scalability, operational efficiency, improved availability, security, and simplified maintenance processes. Eliminate capital infrastructure costs and optimize budget quotas.
• Scale rapidly: Reach new markets and scale up and down as demand changes.
• Ensure security and compliance: Sitecore is accredited and continuously monitored and audited to meet ISO 27,001, 27,000, 1718, CSA star, PCI, DSS and SOC2 standards. And Microsoft has over 3,500 security experts working in its Azure product group.
• Rapid deployment: Sitecore Managed Cloud deploys easily and quickly on Microsoft Azure's flexible, enterprise-grade cloud platform via Azure App Services (PaaS) or containers with Kubernetes across a multitude of global data centers, which integrate seamlessly with existing back-end systems. IT can instantly support the dynamic world of personalized digital marketing by rapidly deploying sites and campaigns in minutes instead of weeks or months.
• Leverage world-class expertise: Simply put, no one knows Sitecore applications like Sitecore!

Request a custom, live guided demo of Sitecore Managed Cloud, and a member of the Sitecore team will contact you.