Cutting through in a crowded cloud

The latest research shows the market for all things cloud – whether its services, infrastructure, tools or applications – continues to grow rapidly. But with the market getting more crowded, and the low-hanging customer fruit largely picked, cloud providers are being challenged to get smarter with their go-to-market approach. So how can you stand out in a market that might be booming but is arguably reaching supply-side saturation?

A buoyant market still growing strongly

The latest research reveals that the cloud growth story continues unabated. Forecasts from Gartner suggest that the total public cloud services market will grow by another 21.7% this year [1] following 26% growth in 2021. Flexera’s most recent State of the Cloud Report reveals that 63% of organisations now class themselves as heavy cloud users, up from 53% two years ago, and more than half now spend over $2.4 million on public cloud each year [2].

It’s not just the hyperscalers who are benefitting though, the associated services opportunity is growing apace. 57% of organisations say they are engaging MSPs to support their public cloud usage [3] and the Cloud Managed Services Market is forecast to be worth $139.4 billion by 2026, up from $86.1 billion in 2021 [4].

Intense competition means no room for complacency

Amidst such abundant demand it would be easy to think that any provider of cloud-related services is on easy street, inundated with enquiries from prospective customers eager to hand over their cloud budgets. But a booming cloud services market has attracted new entrants like bees to a honeypot. ‘Born in the cloud’ players have been joined by a plethora of ISVs, VARs, MSPs, Telcos, SIs and outsourcers – all looking to take a share of the cloud pie.

As a result, the market is intensely competitive and achieving aggressive growth targets is becoming increasingly difficult. What’s more, the explosive growth rates of recent years have encouraged complacency in the way that cloud services have been marketed, with providers falling into a ‘build it and they will come’ mindset, with messages focused on a largely technical, early-adopter audience that have been happy to educate themselves about what they need and why. That approach won’t cut it any longer.

Time for smarter cloud marketing

If cloud providers are going to capitalise on the significant opportunity that the cloud market still represents then they need to get smarter with their go-to-market approach. They need to think carefully about who their target audience is and they need to engage them with relevant stories that talk about the things they care about.

Based on our experiences working with a range of leading cloud providers, here are some of the areas that we think every cloud services marketer needs to be addressing as part of their strategy:

• Deeper customer insight – why taking the time to gain real insight into the drivers, needs and challenges of your target customers, and who’s influencing their buying journeys, is key to success
• Defining your sweet spot – why it’s essential to have clarity about the challenges and needs that you’re best equipped to address and the opportunities where you’re best placed to win
• Reaching new personas – why you need to reach beyond the technical buying audience and engage the business contacts who are increasingly driving cloud purchasing decisions
• More targeted and personalised approaches – why relevance is key and how industry- or persona-based messages and personalised strategies such as ABM can help you achieve it
• Compelling, end-to-end story – why you need a story that doesn’t just talk about what you do but engages your prospective buyers around the things they care about and offers a point of view about what’s going on in their world

How can we can help

If you are a cloud solutions or service provider struggling to achieve the growth rates you desire, Momentum ITSMA is ideally placed to help re-energise your go-to-market programmes. We’re an award-winning B2B agency that specialises in delivering innovative go-to-market solutions to help cloud providers grow faster. We have experience working with a wide range of cloud providers – including some of the industry’s leading players such as AWS, Equinix and Cisco – and a track record of delivering first-in-class results.