As the demand for flexible and scalable storage solutions continues to surge, it's no surprise that cloud storage has become a hot commodity. However, despite its growing popularity, many resellers are struggling to effectively drive net new cloud sales. To win, it's important to differentiate from the marketplace - and given that the cloud solutions you're likely pushing are third-party, you need to communicate the added value you can bring to your end customer.
Knowing Your Target Audience
The process of recognising who would benefit most from your cloud storage solutions is an essential component of an effective marketing strategy. The target audience you are aiming for could potentially encompass anything from early-stage start-ups and smaller enterprises to large-scale corporations spanning a variety of sectors. It's important to pick a defined persona and stick to it. If you opt to go to market with a one-size-fits-all approach to cloud solutions, you will find yourself struggling to engage.
In picking your focus audience, it's useful to think about a few key things: do you have a good level of experience in a specific sector or vertical? Think about the potential case studies you could bring to life with your GTM strategy. Our advice is always to pick a sector and double down. From here, you can adapt your marketing approach to address the unique requirements, preferences, and challenges of your sector-focused audience.
Identifying Your USPs
In a marketplace teeming with competition, establishing your business' unique proposition, and where you can add value is crucial. The cloud solutions you're reselling have their own product and solution USPs, but what makes you stand out against a crowded competitive space? Identifying and combining both will help you to drive optimum impact with your target audience.
Think about added-value elements such as 24/7 support, proactive monitoring, quarterly storage reviews, how-to guides, and so on, to help customers get the most out of their usage. The last thing you want to do is onboard a new customer to a solution that they struggle to understand or get the most from. In nailing your USPs, look at what the competition is doing and offering and think about how you stand out.
Leveraging Content Marketing
Harnessing the influence of content marketing is a strategic move and will begin to position your brand as experts in cloud storage. Through creating insightful and educational material focusing on more than 'what is the cloud' style articles, and instead bringing to life the benefits, how to make the most of your investment, how to future-proof against potential requirements, and so on, you will begin to move the needle in your favour.
It's important to map content across the full funnel, utilising a range of formats, including blog posts and articles, eBooks, infographics, and video content to effectively engage your target audience. As we discussed under target audience, think about how to make these content types as relevant as they can possibly be: can you verticalise them to the sector that you are targeting? Bring content to life with relevant examples and use cases so that the reader believes that you understand their needs and challenges.
Building Credibility
Social proof, presented in the form of testimonials, case studies, or reviews, act as a powerful tool to reinforce your credibility and convince potential customers to select your services. Actively seek out satisfied clients and motivate them to share their positive encounters with your cloud storage offering. Where possible, find opportunities for you both to win: is there a joint speaking opportunity you could apply for?
By displaying customer use cases and case studies across your website and within your marketing materials, you will begin to generate trust and authority.
Leveraging Digital Marketing Tactics
Talking to the same voids will only get you so far when trying to promote cloud solutions, that means moving outside of posting on your social media channels. To get in front of a net new pool of prospects, you are going to have leverage digital marketing channels to drive forward your marketing efforts.
First and foremost, PPC can help you to reach an intentional audience; those who are proactively searching for a specific vendor solution - for example, AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, or because they have a particular need, i.e., 'cloud storage'. There is an element of intent with their search, which means they are likely to be further down the funnel and closer to being ready to buy.
Paid social, another digital advertising tactic, is the process of proactively targeting people via social media platforms, such as LinkedIn. These tactics help you to proactively reach a targeted audience, though unlike PPC, this level of engagement carries much less intent and therefore is likely to generate fewer bottom-of-funnel leads. With the average B2B buyer engaging with a brand around 36 times before buying, paid social has a great role to play in building brand awareness as part of a multi-channel approach.
Email marketing continues to offer effective ways to engage prospects and provides rich insights on prospect behaviour; for example, the links that somebody clicks, or the subject lines that prompt somebody to open an email.
Partnering with Credible Third Parties
Allying yourself with esteemed third parties can significantly enhance your credibility and broaden your customer base. This could include forging relationships with well-respected industry influencers, technological pundits, or businesses offering complementary services. These partnerships can take various forms - from endorsing your cloud storage solutions and offering expert reviews, to co-hosting webinars and live events. Such collaborations not only boost your reputation but also expose your offerings to a broader audience, creating additional avenues for potential customers.
Additionally, you could look to partner with a channel marketing agency, that can help you design strategies and execute effective and engaging marketing activities utilising your own internal marketing budget or vendor marketing development funds.