Businesses that keep their operations going on a remote basis are no longer out of the ordinary. Shanice Jones writes about why the most successful among them use cutting-edge automation and store their data on cost-effective cloud-based hosting systems. 

The future of remote work depends on reliable, affordable and extensible methods for businesses going digital to store and interact with customer data remotely. As part of their digital transformations, businesses should ensure they equip their digital marketers with the proper knowledge and training to avoid common mistakes and make the most of their customer data on cloud-based systems.

Lack of marketing automation 

Successful digital marketing campaigns thrive on creativity as well as variety. Email-only outreach campaigns grow stale fast but are, more often than not, the only viable option for businesses operating with limited resources. With marketing automation software, businesses can minimise manual marketing tasks. Cloud-hosted solutions let them automatically manage multiple marketing processes relating to more than one digital marketing campaign.

Businesses that remain unconvinced that automation paves the way for the future of digital marketing need only look to the innovations that artificial intelligence (AI) is making. Rapid changes in AI technology impact all types of business models; these changes start as soon as businesses start redefining roles in their organisation and figuring out what tasks automation can complete quicker and more efficiently than a human is capable of.

Customers appreciate it when businesses update them regularly about what they’re up to, which is why it’s wise to do so on social media as well as through email. With automation software, businesses can now diversify their customer experience. Use cloud-based automation to create a multi-channel marketing experience for your website’s visitors as well as your marketing team’s leads that doesn’t grow stale due to email-only outreach. 

One of the biggest mistakes that digital marketers make is underestimating the power of automation via the cloud. A cloud-based system can prove to be highly cost-effective and, according to cloud computing expert Barbara Ericson of Cloud Defense: “It often results in fantastic savings for companies. Before cloud computing other ‘as a service’ offerings were provided, companies had to purchase, construct and maintain their own IT management technology and digital infrastructure.”

Focusing on the wrong tools

The world of cloud computing may seem understandably foreign and overly technical to a sizable chunk of the digital marketing world. A huge mistake businesses are therefore often guilty of making is devising an IT-only cloud strategy that ignores marketing needs and doesn’t involve other departments. Businesses can best identify which digital marketing tools make the most sense for their needs by involving their marketing team in addition to IT.

Among the best tools that balance the needs of IT and marketing departments are cloud-based platforms that also act as ‘cloud data warehouses’. Any successful cloud adoption endeavor maximises the gains from switching to the cloud with a provider that offers self-service features which let digital marketers automate tasks like client follow-ups and lead tracking. Businesses also need a tool that offers technical superiority for IT professionals, is cloud-native and harnesses the full service package of the provider. 

With the right tools that aren’t just marketing-focused and instead strike a fine balance between the needs of both marketing and IT departments, businesses can maximise the benefits of their cloud adoption and equip their employees with the proper resources to efficiently do their jobs. 

Make sure that your business identifies a provider of a cloud-hosted platform that acts as both a marketing tool as well as a cloud data warehouse to get the most out of your shift to the cloud. This approach will ensure that marketers are driving all of their tools on a single data warehouse-like platform, while IT gets to rest easy knowing that their cloud-native solution doesn’t include data silos that create multiple copies of existing data.

Too few security measures

Large sets of data that are stored on the cloud inevitably raise questions about the integrity of security. Plenty of cloud-based digital marketing tools support remote teams like big data warehouses and promote collaboration among company partners in addition to third-party agencies. Unfortunately, a common mistake made is leaving the door wide open for would-be threat actors to walk through.

Remote working and mobile communications have increased the attack surface for many businesses around the globe and those businesses deserve reliable means for their marketing teams to fight back. Businesses require proper measures that include cloud directory services, top VPN services and an enforced security policy that is pushed to each endpoint and packaged with antivirus and antimalware definitions, which are required to enforce a remote business’s security standards. VPNs, in particular, are among the most effective and affordable means to secure remote communications between cloud-based systems and remote digital marketers.

Cloud-hosted systems are, indeed, powerful. With great power comes at least a smidgen of responsibility. One of the biggest responsibilities that digital businesses have is using a good VPN provider that can mask IP addresses of remote employees and keep their geographical locations a secret. Using a VPN baffles cybercriminals because the IP address they get from your connection is the IP address from the VPN service and not your personal IP address.

There is no doubt the 2021 cloud environment has evolved into a reliable, security-defined platform, but as we enter an era of top multi-cloud hosting, it’s also vital to protect data transfers between the cloud and the remote devices of marketing employees. Use the proper security measures to mitigate security vulnerabilities of cloud-hosted systems and allow digital marketers to continue to work unaccosted by cyberattacks on their data. 

Maximise the benefits of remote work

There are more companies these days operating remotely than ever before. Remote work is such a prominent part of the new normal that it only makes sense for there to be a few misconceptions that businesses and, subsequently, their marketers hold in regards to cloud-based systems. It’s important, however, that marketers avoid common mistakes when using their cloud-based platform to maximise the benefits of remote work. 

Businesses should select cloud-hosted software automation software that lets marketers automate tasks. Software should also enable them to devise a more multi-channel customer outreach campaign. However, these businesses should ensure that they don’t focus too much on marketing-only tools. A good cloud adoption strategy balances the needs of marketing and IT departments with self-service features as well as cloud-native technical superiority. The proper security measures and in particular a good VPN provider are necessary to provide businesses with secure cloud-based marketing and operations for the long term, too. 

Shanice Jones is a software engineer and freelance technical writer.

Photo by Zbynek Burival on Unsplash.