“Absolutely!” is the answer to this article’s titular question. Cloud computing’s natural talent in rendering everyday essential business maneuvers automatic, more flexible, and more timely makes it a downright essential for successful modern-day marketing campaigns. Here are a few reasons why.
Selection of services is one of the primary advantages of the cloud to marketing professionals. Many cloud products allow prospective parties to test-drive them before committing financially via nifty free trials, inviting you to sample them and gauge their appropriateness for your particular marketing aims. Much of these professionals’ affairs involving data can also be completed in increments (mining it for relevant info, integrating it with larger documents) can be executed in the cloud outside of the often expensive 9-to-5 schedule, which can be an economical move.
Because using the cloud doesn’t involve having to buy into hardware or software, you remain independent of any contracts. Not having to fret over the precise figure of storage required to maintain every shred of data is another bonus here, in that cloud computing can be scaled up or down in a pay-as-you-go platform, a move which does away with having to spend an exorbitant amount on an initial infrastructure.
The cloud also fosters intrinsic and efficient collaboration between fellow professionals or members of a marketing team. Handling a multifaceted campaign is thus made much simpler, as information in the cloud can be disseminated faster and with less fuss. As long as each client has access to a solid connection to the Internet and cloud-accessible equipment, she can take part in this collaborative spirit. Communal storage proves to be another key value of the cloud. This entails a complete severing of the necessity of purchasing pricey data protection infrastructure to safeguard important documents. With the cloud, your data can be stored in a location accessible only by staff granted the requisite permission.
But perhaps the greatest advantage of cloud for the marketing set is the seamless transition from CapEx (capital expenditure: fixed assets, machinery, etc.) to OpEx (operational expenditure: rent, wages, machinery maintenance, etc.) that it readily allows. Economically, this switch can divert more monetary resources toward the flashier sector of a marketing strategy, namely the campaigns that will earn that desired return on investment. And this capacity to launch better campaigns more quickly equalizes smaller marketing teams with their larger and ostensibly better equipped counterparts.
By Jeff Norman
