I have to admit my first reaction to the email featuring the Marketing Cloud had me wondering why it took so long for anyone in marketing to get on the Cloud hype bandwagon. I mean come on, Cloud is the big idea in technology and arguably in its buzzword prime. Beyond my natural curmudgeonly initial thoughts, the Marketing Cloud did get my attention.
The Marketing Cloud is an alliance of vendors that includes Alfresco, demandbase, Hoovers, Jigsaw, Marketo, ON24 and pivotlink. The Marketing Cloud website is intended to be a community where marketers can "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. Members can register for updates, test drive the solutions, access the knowledgebase and attend virtual events."
While I've been dying to contribute to the definition of Marketing Cloud, I thought I'd focus on diving into the various resources and information the site offers. The site provides access to a small collection of white papers and other resources from the participating vendors (registration required) along with some good general information on what the group is defining as the marketing cloud. A couple interesting scenarios are included that not surprisingly integrate the vendor solutions, but nonetheless provide some valuable ideas.
It's easy to scoff a little at this project on one level because it seems so transparent as a lead generation vehicle, but I think it's a nice example of elements we could be doing more with as marketers. For starters it appears to be a nice collaboration amongst a handful of complementary vendors rallying behind a common idea. These types of collaborations can be tricky to put together and often fall apart in the execution. This one seems to have partners that fit well together and that all clearly tie back to the overall idea.
Beyond the collaboration, it also strikes me as a solid example of content marketing, using interesting content as the gravitational pull, drawing that content from multiple sources and integrating the appropriate social media mechnisms.
To those associated with the Marketing Cloud, nice job. A smart marketing concept, well executed and built around core marketing concepts we should all be familiar with. Now about that Marketing Cloud definition...
