Published 8 May 2019

Demand Generation: 20 Ways to Sell Cloud BI Solutions

The growing importance of cloud BI is due to it enabling data-driven decision-making and providing actionable insights. Effective demand generation strategies specific to cloud BI solutions, including targeted content marketing, thought leadership, webinars, and lead nurturing techniques help strengthen its case. This blog helps you understand the buyer's journey and tailor marketing efforts accordingly. It also serves as a valuable resource for businesses seeking to drive demand and achieve success in the cloud BI market.

Introduction

Cloud business intelligence (BI) solutions offer multiple benefits to organizations at all levels to an organization. Whether it is optimizing services with access to real time data, making well-informed decisions with data-driven insights on market fluctuations or enjoying more business savings, cloud BI solutions are pioneering new and exciting changes in the field.

Wondering how to market cloud services?

Here are 20 fool-proof ways to meet your targets and maximize profits-

Position Your Organization as a Cloud Marketer
Highlight Enterprise-Grade Security Features
Storytelling as a Lead Generation Strategy
SEO to Improve Search Rank
Reach Out to Influencers in The Market
Give Away Free SaaS E-books for New Learnings
Engaging Email Campaigns for Software Lead Generation
Involve Every Key Persons and Their Business Areas
Employing the Services of a Lead Generation Service
Understand Content that Works for Your Audience
Use CRM Software to Manage Lead Relationships
Link Marketing and Sales Data with Overall Goals (Pipeline Marketing)
Implement Display Advertising for Results
Integrate BI Solution with Existing Client Business Strategy
Highlight the Value Proposition with Better Functionality
Build Knowledge About the Changing Cloud Market
Data-Driven Intelligence for Improved Business Performance
Adapt Strategy to Catch Attention of Prospective Customers
Provide a Seamless Customer Experience
Offer a Mobile-Friendly Dashboard for Greater Flexibility

1. Position Your Organization as a Cloud Marketer

A great strategy is to market your company as a cloud marketer, instead of being just another vendor. The key is to highlight the unique advantages of your product, and how it can bring about a more successful IT organization compared to other similar solutions in the industry.

2. Highlight Enterprise-Grade Security Features

Consumers are sometimes under the misconception that there are no added security benefits when using cloud services. Marketers must clarify the enhanced enterprise-grade security features available, that outweigh the protection offered by a data center.

3. Storytelling as a Lead Generation Strategy

The cloud bi market size is saturated with options and presenting a different angle can be frustrating. Having a clear storytelling pitch with authentic and attention-grabbing content can increase engagement with prospective clients significantly, in an easy to understand manner. To get the content flow right, you might have to invest extra resources that is often beyond the scope of marketers.

4. SEO to Improve Search Rank

If you are wondering about how to market cloud services, a good tactic to employ is optimizing both your on-page SEO and your off-page SEO with the aim of increasing traffic to the website from diverse search engines. Improving your SEO can have a positive impact on the revenue made.

5. Reach Out to Influencers in The Market

Influencers on different social network platforms can take your product to another level in the market. A good way to approach them would be by giving them a free sample of your product to review or write about. Bloggers in this context have often made the difference for other SaaS companies and successfully driven up revenues.

6. Give Away Free SaaS E-books for New Learnings

See how the ranking of your keywords for your product increase when you offer prospective audiences free SaaS eBooks. It is a budget-friendly technique to give an opportunity to new communities to try the product, and benefit from new learning for their business.

7. Engaging Email Campaigns for Software Lead Generation

Smart and vibrant email campaigns fall under outbound channels that help BI solutions connect with wider audiences and build a rapport with reliable software buyers. Engaging email campaigns should be part of a larger software lead generation strategy to fill the gaps resulting from inbound.

8. Involve Every Key Persons and Their Business Areas

To be a successful Cloud Marketer, key persons and their area of expertise should be incorporated into the process. By doing so, you will be able to reach various types of BI users in an organization, and also develop tailored solutions for each of them.

9. Employing the Services of a Lead Generation Service

Many B2B firms employ a lead generation services company, especially in the software and IT sector. In the complex world of B2B marketing strategy, outsourcing it to an experienced software lead generation service helps to get top performance faster.

10. Understand Content that Works for Your Audience

Singularly attractive and engaging content is what makes certain companies stand out versus the rest. When there’s a big community writing about the same topic, separating yourself by taking the cues from a customer base is vital for success.

11. Use CRM Software to Manage Lead Relationships

A great CRM software can help you to automate certain processes such as sending sign-up reminders, follow up emails and other forms to contact lists. It also has the features to better organize the existing relationships.

12. Link Marketing and Sales Data with Overall Goals (Pipeline Marketing)

While generating new leads should be a priority for your business, taking care of the existing ones must also be kept in mind. Increasing the customer base and building revenue must happen simultaneously. When you implement pipeline marketing, both marketing and sales data are integrated to promote goals based on revenue.

13. Implement Display Advertising for Results

Display advertising is often underused, but it can deliver surprisingly positive results if you are a Cloud Marketer. Doing accurate research and building a foundation in best practices on display advertising can help significantly.

14. Integrate BI Solution with Existing Client Business Strategy

When the cloud business intelligence solution offers solid value to existing investments and helps to develop long-term integrated approaches, it is likely to be a resounding success for an organization.

15. Highlight the Value Proposition with Better Functionality

Consumers always put value first along with the cost when it comes to adopting a new product. BI solutions that offer an improved ROI will be better positioned than others with similar products or services.

16. Build Knowledge About the Changing Cloud Market

As a cloud marketer, one needs to continually stay tuned to the evolving needs of the market and find new innovations when it comes to keeping the audience abreast.

17. Data-Driven Intelligence for Improved Business Performance

Data-driven analytics result in better business performance overtime. This can reflect in the top line sales revenue, seamlessness of operations and company revenue.

18. Adapt Strategy to Catch Attention of Prospective Customers

To account for future concerns early, a cloud service should be created with an adaptive strategy in mind. That way, prospective clients are reassured.

19. Provide a Seamless Customer Experience

Customer experience is a make or break in this highly competitive market. A good way to get a jumpstart on others is by focusing on addressing an audiences’ unique needs and promoting a more holistic approach.

20. Offer a Mobile-Friendly Dashboard for Greater Flexibility

BI solutions that offer a multitude of platforms for added convenience and better flexibility, are the preferred option for many customers today versus those with only conventional solutions.

Final thoughts

Cloud BI and analytics solutions are building a reputation for providing a host of benefits to corporate executives and other users, yet selling or marketing these may be a challenge. A great way to pitch such a product, is to share key insights about how it gives an organization the extra edge against other rivals in an ultra-competitive market. For instance, many sales leaders and business executives are swayed by the immense time savings from automated report generation. At the end of the day, take stock of the audience and tailor your argument wisely, keeping the above points in mind!