Leading Demand Gen Solution Providers Connect To Form “The Marketing Cloud”
- Written by Andrew Gaffney
- Published in Feature Articles
Just as cloud computing has transformed CRM and other core business functions, several industry leaders have joined together to help create an end-to-end cloud solution for marketing applications. Launched for the first time at Dreamforce 2009, the Marketing Cloud is a collection of cloud-based marketing services designed to “make internal marketing operations more efficient and external marketing programs more effective.”
Founded as an alliance between Alfresco, Demandbase, Hoovers (a D&B company), Marketo, Jigsaw, ON24 and PivotLink, the Marketing Cloud is positioned to deliver fast, easy and cost-effective options for marketers to integrate data silos, automate processes, foster collaboration and develop actionable marketing insights.
Promising the same benefits that cloud computing has brought to the enterprise, the Marketing Cloud is positioned to complement the Sales Cloud and Service Cloud pioneered by Salesforce.com.
Because marketing spans a broad spectrum of multi-faceted functions, the Marketing Cloud will be delivered by combining open, interoperable and secure marketing-related services across multiple categories, including business intelligence (BI), community, content management, lead generation, lists and data hygiene, marketing automation, online meetings, and virtual events -- with more services being added over time.
Each charter member of the Marketing Cloud alliance will contribute technology and domain expertise to the Marketing Cloud ecosystem. Some of the direct feedback from leading executives at the founding members included:
"Marketing effectiveness is no longer about the number of clicks -- it's about traffic quality, conversion, sales pipeline and revenue," said Chris Golec, CEO, Demandbase, a leading provider of B2B customer acquisition solutions. "The Cloud provides our customers with the infrastructure and scalability that is needed to map 100 million Web site visitors every month with 120 business databases and target customer profiles from 25,000 users. Sales and marketing professionals benefit by our ability to economically identify, reach and convert high quality traffic that would otherwise go untouched."
"As cloud-based computing takes over the enterprise, marketing must not be left behind," said Jon Miller, VP Marketing, Marketo, a leading marketing automation provider.
"Modern marketing is moving from being interrupt driven to inbound and content driven, where a prospect searches for, socializes and blogs around content," said Dr. Ian Howells, CMO, Alfresco Software, a leader in the open source enterprise content management market. "The Marketing Cloud allows us to move from a siloed marketing infrastructure to one where marketing can combine open, shared, cloud-based services."
"We are committed to providing marketing and sales teams with the most cutting edge tools for facilitating business transactions and generating high-quality leads," said Jim Fowler, CEO, Jigsaw, a leader in Data as a Service (DaaS) and business information. "Our participation in the Marketing Cloud furthers this commitment by allowing us to not only leverage the power of the cloud but also our valuable partnerships to transform and improve the way companies are managing and executing their marketing campaigns from start to finish."
"Marketers need an end-to-end view of the entire demand creation to revenue process to measure what matters and align marketing with business goals," said Dyke Hensen, CMO, PivotLink, a leader in on-demand business intelligence. "The Marketing Cloud is a dramatic step forward in cloud computing, giving marketers the power to improve business performance with best-in-class marketing solutions that are enhanced by the sophisticated analytics in our communication and collaboration platform."
Marketers can join the new Marketing Cloud community at www.marketing-cloud.com to learn about the Marketing Cloud partners, contribute to the definition of the Marketing Cloud and participate in lively discussions with experts about breakthrough marketing strategies and best practices.