Get in touch and let’s make it happen.

In this article, we are putting Snowflake in the “Marketing Spotlight,” closely looking at how they are executing their sales and marketing strategies as of October 2024.

Why? Because we love a good challenge and want to help fellow marketers get inspired by companies that are doing things right and doing the right things.

By the end, we’ll share what we liked the most about them, hoping our insights will inspire you to create great digital marketing strategies for your B2B SaaS start-up (PS: If you need help, wink-wink, send us a message – we have Milk & Cookies and good strateiges)

P.S. It’s not a short read (some might even say it’s a long read, especially given the shorts & reels & TikToks era), but the insights and strategies you’ll uncover are worth the time!

Understanding Snowflake

Snowflake is a cloud-based data storage and analytics platform. It operates on a SaaS model. Founded in 2012 in San Mateo, USA, Snowflake has expanded globally with over 40 offices around the world.

Snowflake specializes in several data-related fields, including data warehousing, cloud computing, analytics, data lakes, marketing analytics, data applications, data engineering, data science, and data exchange. As of October 2024, Snowflake has a growing community of 8,583 associated members on LinkedIn and is actively hiring.

The median employee tenure of 2.1 years, while not exceptionally high, is reasonable for a fast-growing tech company.

They have 536 job openings on LinkedIn, focusing on hiring engineers, with 168 jobs on their website being the highest category, followed by sales with 124 jobs. For marketing roles, they have 32 open positions.

The large number of open positions (6.3% out of the total number of employees), especially in engineering and sales, suggests that Snowflake is experiencing significant growth and expansion. The highest number of openings in engineering indicates that Snowflake is heavily investing in technology development and innovation. This is important because it shows that Snowflake is actively expanding its team to meet the increasing demand for its products and services. The focus on hiring engineers might show their commitment to technological innovation and their goal of purpose at the forefront of the data cloud industry.

In the past 2 years they’ve launched a series of new cool technologies and projects, showing their focus (and commitment if we are looking for a GPT-style word to describe this) on growth. This push for innovation, along with the focus on hiring engineers, indicates that Snowflake is expanding its capabilities to stay ahead of the game in the data cloud industry. The growing demand for their products and services is likely driving this surge in new hires.

Snowflake’s brand promise & claim analysis

Their brand claim, “A Platform Like No Other” is a bold statement meant to position Snowflake as a unique and innovative solution for data management.

Snowflake promises to help clients get more value from their data. In other words, they clearly state what their services are and the value they bring—helping customers understand their data. They also explain how they will achieve this, namely by eliminating data silos and simplifying architectures. But we went even further with our analysis. From the Connectivity Benchmark report, we found out that 81% of IT decision-makers said the biggest challenge to meeting digital transformation targets was data siloing. By mentioning its ability to overcome this challenge, Snowflake positions itself as a highly relevant solution for businesses looking to modernise their data management strategies and become more relevant to the market.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Value proposition

Snowflake’s services

Snowflake provides a wide range of cloud-based data services designed to transform how organizations store, process, and analyze data, including data warehousing, data lakes, data sharing, and more. Additionally, Snowflake Professional Services, part of the Enablement Solutions, offers expert consulting and support to help businesses “optimize, accelerate, and achieve their business goals.” Prospective clients are encouraged to contact a representative through a call-to-action (CTA). Snowflake also offers migration services to help organizations move from legacy data systems to the Snowflake Data Cloud. One of its latest and most innovative products is Snowflake Cortex AI, which allows organizations to build and deploy AI models directly on the Snowflake platform without needing extra infrastructure.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Cortex AI

Their services span across different industries, such as manufacturing, telecom, travel and hospitality, financial services, etc. For each industry Snowflake has a dedicated landing page, where they focus on how data might help in that specific industry. We have noticed, that the title of the landing page starts the same, “AI DATA CLOUD FOR….”. The consistent format immediately states the core value proposition: Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud is a solution customised to different industries.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: services, industries, and features

Each service has a dedicated landing page, where prospects are offered a 30-day free trial. Each landing page has a clean design, modern, with a clear structure for information.

Snowflake’s Partner Solutions

Now let’s talk just a little bit about their Partner Solutions, aka their Partner Network and Partner Finder.

These are some tools that help Snowflake customers find partners for their specific needs, such as migration assistance, application development, or industry-specific solutions. Snowflake’s Partner Network and Partner Finder are some pretty important pieces of their marketing & customer success ecosystem, designed to help customers maximize the value they get from Snowflake’s services.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Partner network

How do they differentiate themselves

From their Why Snowflake” landing page we see what might set them apart: “With the AI Data Cloud, you can collaborate locally and globally to reveal new insights, create previously unforeseen business opportunities, and identify and know your customers in the moment with seamless and relevant experiences.”

One of the key benefits of the AI Data Cloud is its ability to provide real-time customer insights. This allows businesses to immediately adjust marketing campaigns, product recommendations, and customer service interactions based on up-to-the-minute preferences and behaviors.

They also have a 3-minute video publicly available that introduces Snowflake’s Data Cloud capabilities and shows how their solutions can address many of the data challenges and limitations companies face.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Snowflake's Data Cloud capabilities

Conclusions

Snowflake positions itself as a unique and comprehensive solution for data management and analytics, reinforcing its “Platform Like No Other” claim. Also, when presenting their services, Snowflake often highlights specific use cases and outcomes, such as hyper-personalized marketing, improved customer experience, and maximized revenue.

Get in touch and let’s make it happen.

Social Media

Let’s now take a look at what Snowflake is up to on social media. Since social media is where the tech world meets memes and marketing magic, it’s always interesting to see how tech companies balance technical content with engaging, shareable content.

Recently, tech brands put a lot of efforts to implement and leverage viral trends and it’s fun to see how Snowflake uses these strategies to connect with its audience while promoting its data solutions.

Leadership presence on LinkedIn

Sridhar Ramaswamy (The CEO of Snowflake)

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: CEO

Sridhar Ramaswamy has 114,685 followers on LinkedIn where he posts weekly.

His strategy is pretty straightforward: he mostly reposts posts and shares original posts that highlight the results companies achieve using Snowflake’s platform or announcing new partnerships.

Some of his posts highlight Snowflake’s capabilities, including success stories showcasing cost savings, efficiency improvements, and industry-specific applications (e.g., AI Data Cloud for Travel & Hospitality).

He also shares the case studies posted on Snowflake’s website. While he’s quite active, he doesn’t really reply to the comments or use calls-to-action to guide his audience to Snowflake’s website.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: CEO's LinkedIn posts

Denise Persson (CMO at Snowflake)

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: CMO

Denise Persson, the CMO of Snowflake, has 15,354 followers on LinkedIn. While she is less active than the CEO, she shares original posts about Snowflake’s new partnerships, Snowflake’s innovations, or events where she is a speaker. While she doesn’t frequently respond to the comments of her own posts, she interacts with others, often congratulating them on various achievements.

The CMO’s favourite hashtag seems to be #snowflake, as she uses it quite often on her posts. Her posts also highlight how industry leaders use Snowflake’s technology and what results they achieve. For instance, she has showed how companies like Zoom use Snowflake Cortex to develop Enterprise Gen AI applications.

For Denise, positioning is extremely important in marketing and you must get it right, or the rest of your efforts will suffer. As she said in an interview from Saastr, “It’s really like building a house: If the foundation isn’t strong enough, the walls will crack. With strong positioning, you can avoid cracks in your marketing.”

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: CMO's LinkedIn posts

The company’s presence on social media (per channel analysis)

LinkedIn

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: LinkedIn

Snowflake has a strong presence on LinkedIn with over 935,000 followers. They are quite active on LinkedIn, as they have an average of 95 posts per month. They use a mix of content formats (video + text, images + text, events, link sharing) to reach different audience preferences and stimulate engagement. Although their followers don’t interact much through comments, their content still generates high engagement (some recent posts go as high as 600+ likes), suggesting their posts resonate with their audience.

Snowflake’s content mainly focuses on promoting the company, as they regularly shares information about their products and technologies, including new features, updates, and integrations. This keeps their audience informed (end educated) about the latest capabilities of their platform.

Their posts primarily promote the company, sharing updates on products, new features, and integrations to keep followers informed about the platform’s latest capabilities. For example, they recently launched The Snow Report, a monthly video newsletter that recaps recent events and product announcements. Snowflake also generates a lot of educational content, organizes some webinars, conferences, and insightful material on topics relevant to their customers, which they share on LinkedIn. We will talk about their webinars and other content marketing activites in more detail later on in this article.

Their content pillars are, as we can analyze from their public posts:

  • Industry trends and insights
  • customer success stories
  • product updates
  • company & industry events (online and offline)
  • educational content
  • valuable resources

Snowflake uses different CTAs throughout their posts and landing pages:

  • “Read the full story” and “Learn more”: for blog posts, case studies, and customer stories.
  • “Join us” and “Check out”: To register for webinars/events.

On LinkedIn, they are sharing video snippets from their podcast, “The Data Cloud Podcast”, where they invite C-level executives to discuss the role of data and AI across various industries, including healthcare. Many of their posts announce new partnerships with different companies. They clearly invest a lot of effort into making their content engaging.

We also notices that their marketing team is getting creative whenever the context allows them and incorporate wordplays and puns related to the company’s name. We really like this, like a lot. Otherwise it would have been a missed opportunity to incorporate a cool naming in the communication mix.

For example, “The Snow Report” or “There’s snow much to learn! ❄️”. The playful tone can make marketing materials more, cooler (see? we can use puns as well), enjoyable and engaging for the their audience, which increase interest and lead to higher levels of engagement

Snowflake’s strategy aims to generate demand and ultimately leads by focusing on driving traffic to their website through event registrations, sharing podcast, customer success stories, articles, etc. A lot of their posts include a link which directs prospects on their website, directly in the post (without any “Link in the first comment” stuff).

Another interesting channel is their LinkedIn newsletter, with 225K subscribers. This is a good way for them to directly reach a large audience of potential customers and partners on LinkedIn, that get notified each time Snowflake posts something. A good channel to have at hand whenever a tech brand has something important to communicate.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: LinkedIn newsletter

Btw, we were curious to find their best performing post in the past months. Why is that? well… because we are cool and geeks like that. Why do we think the post got so “viral”?

  1. Netlfix is very popular and trendy
  2. It shows a commitment to data privacy and security (very much appreciated in general)
  3. It might have been boosted

Without further ado, here it is:

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: LinkedIn best post

Facebook

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Facebook channel

On Facebook Snowflake has 19K likes and 22K followers. However, their engagement rates on Facebook is lower compared to LinkedIn.

Also, their last post dates back to May 24, 2024, with minimal engagement. A lot of their posts typically get less than 40 likes. The most common activity on their Facebook page appears to be updating their cover photo.

It feels like the primary channel for marketing is LinkedIn and their Facebook page is something in the area of “we also need to be there, YOLO”.

X aka (ex Twitter)

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Twitter X

On X (formerly known as Twitter – oh, Pepperidge Farm Remembers the good ol’ Twitter days), Snowflake is more active, posting weekly. Their content is similar to the content they post on LinkedIn, but the engagement is significantly lower.

Snowflake’s content pillars on X include product demos and tutorials, customer stories, industry insights, and live streams where the audience can participate in Q&A sessions. Pretty similar to LinkedIn.

Youtube

Snowflake mentions YouTube among its social media channels, showing a multi-channel marketing approach, #LikeAboss.

With nearly 40K subscribers and 885 videos, they post new content on a weekly basis, with variety of video content like product demos, tutorials, customer success stories, and thought leadership pieces—to reach different audience segments. They also have playlists focused on industries like Healthcare & Life Sciences, Retail & CPG, Financial Services, and Telecommunications, allowing them to target specific sector needs.

Additionally, Snowflake educates its audience with series like “Getting Started with Snowflake” and “Cloud Data Warehousing Best Practices,” positioning themselves as industry experts, while educating their potential clients on how to better use Snowflake.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Youtube channel

Social media strategy analysis

Snowflake heavily focuses on LinkedIn, which looks like their primary social media channel, with supporting efforts on YouTube, X (Twitter), and minimal presence on Facebook. This approach allows them to concentrate their resources where their (most likely) ideal customer profile hangs and generates the most engagement and leads.

We believe YouTube is pretty cool for longer-form content, such as product demos, tutorials, and webinars, considering that in 2024, 89% of consumers confirmed they want to see more videos from brands, especially B2B tech brands.

We have also noticed an bias towards educational content and thought leader in their industry. Why is this important? Because they have a tech heavy product that needs a lot of actionably and concrete examples on how to use it to solve business problems. Also, thought leadership can generate a lot of new business opportunities with their ICP, people that are highly educated and knowleadgable and are looking for expertise and clear guidance for their specific problems, not general stuff you can find everywhere on the internet. Therefore, through consistent content creation, Snowflake positions itself as a leading company in the field of data cloud solutions and the go-to solution. This approach helps them build trust and credibility with their audience.

It’s a model of good practices the fact that they they share regular updates, tutorials, and demos across multiple platforms making sure that their audience remains informed about Snowflake’s capabilities and new features, as easy as possible. More than that, product education leads to increased adoption – product education can encourage customers to adopt new features and functionalities, and maximise the value they take from the platform, hence growth in leads generated, happy clients, and upsell.

Their social media strategy complements their lead generation strategy. Many of their posts, especially on LinkedIn, include calls-to-action that direct users to their website. The expected results? Convert top of the funnel awareness and move the audience from the platforms that they do not own (such as social media platforms, where they are just a cog in the machine and do not have any kind of control over the algorithms), to platforms they own (website, newsletter, CRM, etc).

Lastly, active participation of C-suite executives on social media platforms provides additional reach for the company’s messaging, adding some trust factor.

Recommendations and what we can learn from Snowflake

Snowflake’s marketing and sales strategies give us some interesting stuff to chew on for B2B SaaS start-ups looking to improve their digital marketing efforts.

Here’s what we think we can learn from them:

Focus on the platforms that matter: Snowflake puts most of their social media effort into LinkedIn because that’s where their target audience hangs out.

Tip: Find out where your potential customers spend their time online and concentrate your efforts there.

Share helpful educational content: Snowflake creates lots of educational content like webinars, tutorials, and articles to help their audience understand complex topics.

Tip: Offer valuable information that helps your audience solve their very specific problems, in the context of your products or services. This builds trust and positions you as an expert in your field, while it makes their lives simpler.

Get company leaders involved online: Snowflake’s CEO, CMO and many more executives are active on LinkedIn, sharing updates and insights with their networks

Tip: Encourage your company’s leadership to be active on social media to add a personal touch and expand your reach.

Keep branding and messaging consistent: Snowflake uses puns related to their name and keeps their messaging consistent across all platforms.

Tip: Maintain a consistent brand voice and look to make your company more memorable (and why not even interesting – but make sure you don’t over do it… nobody likes a “try hard”).

Show the success stories: They often share stories about how their customers have succeeded using Snowflake’s products.

Tip: Share reallife examples of how your product or service has helped others. This shows potential customers the value you offer, simple and easy to understand. Nobody has time, nor energy, to read a lot of tech talks to understand your product. Leave your ego at the door and make it easy for them to understand.

Use different types of content: Snowflake uses videos, articles, podcasts, and more formats to talk with different types of people.

Tip: Use a variety of content formats to engage your audience in different ways.

Customize messages for different industries: They create specific landing pages and content for different industries. Once again, clarity FTW.

Tip: Customize your messaging to speak directly to the needs and challenges of different customer groups. As personalized as possible.

Build partnerships: Snowflake promotes its partnerships and offers tools to help customers find the right partners.

Tip: Develop partnerships that add value to your customers and promote these relationships to expand your network and reach.

Use clear Calls-to-ActionL Snowflake uses clear CTAs like “Read the full story” or “Join us” to direct their audience.

Tip: Once again, clarity. Use straightforward calls-to-action to guide your audience on what to do next.

Engage with your community: They use different tools and channels to keep in touch with their audience.

Tip: Engage regularly with your audience to build a loyal community around your brand.

Pay attention to what works and adjust the strategy accordingly: Snowflake focuses on platforms and strategies that get the most engagement.

Tip: Keep an eye on your marketing results and focus on the strategies that are most effective.

Final Thoughts

Snowflake’s marketing strategies shows us the importance of a focused, consistent, and customer-centric approach. By prioritizing platforms that generate the most and the best engagement, investing in quality content generation, and continuously testing and innovating, they effectively reach their target audience. B2B SaaS start-ups can learn from these practices to build effective and efficient marketing strategies that drive growth.

Get in touch and let’s make it happen.

Demand generation

In terms of demand generation, Snowflakes uses blog posts in their content marketing efforts, along with events, webinars, community engagement, and a resource center.

Let’s talk about each of them.

Snowflake’s blog posts

We can already see from their resources content that they have two types of blog, a general one and an engineer blog. Snowflake is pretty active here, posting a new blog article every month. The articles are usually around 1,000 to 1,500 words long.

From their content, we can see that Snowflake generates two types of blog posts:

  • general articles
  • engineer-focused blog.

They stay active, posting a new article every month, with each article typically ranging from 1,000 to 1,500 words.

The general blog is focused on diferent categories of articles (about AI//ML, product & technology, etc.). This allows Snowflake to target different parts of their business and be interesting to several audience segments.

The blog focuses on how Snowflake can help businesses use AI and data to do better than their competitors. The articles offer practical advice and real-life examples, so it becomse easier to understand how Snowflake can benefit their specific businesses.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Blog categories

We noticed they have a special category called At Snowflake“, which focuses on the company’s news, new partnerships, and acquisitions—essentially highlighting Snowflake’s own activities. This category could be leveraged to showcase the company’s growth and success, helping to attract top talent. On the Partner & Customer Value landing page, Snowflake features case studies and customer success stories that demonstrate real-world applications of their technology.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: blog posts

Then we randomly opened some of the blog posts to further analyse and try to understand their strategy.

We have noticed the following:

  • On each blog posts they have the “Share the article” button. They made it easy for the readers to share it. This way they get Earned media.
  • At the end of the article they have a clear CTA: either to download a reportort, learn more a specific solution they offer, download a resource, etc.
  • Their tone of voice is informative and approachable.

They have a “Just For You” section, where they recommend articles. The “Just For You” title shows personalised content recommendations, which can increase the read time and decrease the bounce rate by making readers feel the content is tailored to their interests. For example, they are featuring articles from different categories (Product and Technology, Partner & Customer Value), to show various parts of their business and expertise.

  • Their blog articles consists of a mix of thought leadership, product information, and customer success stories;
  • Newsletter signup form at the bottom of the page is there to capture leads for nurturing;
  • There is subtle integration of Snowflake’s products and features within blog posts;
  • Case studies and customer stories provide social proof and show applications of Snowflake’s solutions;
  • “This Just In” section highlights recent content, piquing readers’ curiosity.

It looks like Snowflake creates content addressing different search intents:

  • Informational (e.g., “What is Data Marketplace?”)
  • Navigational (e.g., “Snowflake Data Lake for Dummies”)
  • Transactional (e.g., “Snowflake Pricing” or “Snowflake Certification”)
Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Call to action
Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Recommended articles

Now, let’s analyse the Engineering focused Blog.

The Engineering blog, positions Snowflake as an innovator and technical leader in the data cloud space. Here the focus is mostly on Data (AI and Machine learning). The blog has detailed explanations of Snowflake’s products and features. Good for showing the company’s expertise in data warehousing, data lakes, and data analytics. This blog section it is mostly dedicated to the technical community, such as developers and data engineers. Here they post more often, almost every week. The tone of voice used in the Snowflake Engineering Blog is informative, technical, and objective.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Engineering blog

Community

We know that Snowflake likes to play with words, and they chose a really nice name for their community: “Data Heros Community”. The word “heroes” might evoke positive connotations of courage, determination, and problem-solving. Associating the community with these qualities can inspire a strong sense of identity and belonging among its members, motivating them to contribute and learn together. They have a dedicated button “Ask the community” where they can interact with other and ask questions about their platform.

The Data Heroes Community is a place for Snowflake users to share ideas, and get help with any data problems they’re facing. They even have a monthly leaderboard to see who’s been the most active and helpful! That’s kinda motivating!

More than that, discussions and shared tips can be repurposed as marketing materials. That’s a really good idea – showing real-world value to potential customers. But while it’s not a traditional lead magnet like a free ebook or webinar, the community offers access to educational resources, training materials, and best practices, which can be valuable for potential customers who are evaluating Snowflake’s platform.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Community area

Resources center

When it comes to educational resources, they have plenty, as you can see from the image below. By providing extensive learning resources, Snowflake wants its users to maximize the value they get from their platform, leading to higher satisfaction and retention rates. So what’s more? it might seem that Snowflake might want to become an educational leader in the data management area. They also have a dedicated page for guides, where they create content on more complex matters, such as regression models in machine learning, data lake and so on. They even have an University! But we will talk about it later!

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Resource center

Newsletter

One thing sets their newsletter apart: the “country” field is compulsory. The reason? Snowflake can tailor its marketing communications to specific regions or countries. This field also comes in handy for analytics and insights: knowing the geographical distribution of its subscribers, Snowflake can tailor its marketing strategy for each country. The newsletter is promoted on their blog page, right after a lead has finished reading the article. The reader is already engaged with the topic and has demonstrated interest in Snowflake’s content, so this is the perfect moment to introduce the newsletter. And it is also about convenience: offering the sign-up option directly after the article it removes any additional steps or friction for the reader. Their newsletter could be used as an email marketing strategy. Mid-funnel leads have already expressed interest in Snowflake brand, but they may not be ready to purchase yet. Through newsletter, they stay the top-of-mind of their clients and move them closer to making a purchase when they are ready.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Newsletter

Conclusions

Snowflake uses a really content marketing strategy to reach to different audience segments. And it could sound like this:

  • General blog for business users and decision-makers
  • Engineering blog for technical professionals
  • Community forum for user engagement and support
  • Extensive educational resources including guides and an academy

Recommendations

Create content for different audiences

  • What they do: Snowflake runs two blogs, one for general business readers and another for technical folks like engineers and developers.
  • Why it matters: By creating content to different targets, they make sure everyone finds information that’s relevant and useful.
  • What we can learn: Think about the different people who use your product and create content that speaks directly to each group.

Use an approachable tone

  • What they do: Their articles explain complex topics in a way that’s easy to understand.
  • Why it matters: An approachable tone makes readers feel comfortable and more likely to engage with your content.
  • What we can learn: Write like you’re talking to a friend, keep it simple and friendly to make your content accessible to more people.

Encourage sharing of your content

  • What they do: Snowflake includes “Share the article” buttons on their blog posts.
  • Why it matters: Making it easy to share increases the chances that your content will reach more people.
  • What we can learn: Add social sharing buttons to your content so readers can easily spread the word.

Include clear Calls-to-Action

  • What they do: At the end of their articles, they suggest next steps like downloading a report or learning more about a solution.
  • Why it matters: Clear CTAs guide readers on what to do next, helping turn their interest into action.
  • What we can learn: Always include a simple next step for your readers to keep them engaged with your brand.

Personalize content recommendations

  • What they do: They have a “Just For You” section that recommends articles based on the reader’s interests.
  • Why it matters: Personalization keeps readers on your site longer and makes them feel valued.
  • What we can learn: Use personalized recommendations to make your content more engaging and relevant.

Build a community around your brand

  • What they do: Snowflake’s “Data Heroes Community” lets users ask questions, share ideas, and help each other.
  • Why it matters: A strong community fosters loyalty and turns users into advocates for your brand.
  • What we can learn: Create a space where your users can connect and support each other, enhancing their connection to your brand.

Get in touch and let’s make it happen.

Lead generation

Landing pages

Snowflake creates landing pages that are specifically personalised to the search intent & user needs. And they have a large number of landing pages, just for the Resources they have more than 10.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Landing pages

The pages are designed with lead generation in mind. They often include forms for visitors to submit their contact information in exchange for valuable content or resources.

For example, for the webinars, each landing page has one specific CTA, which is “Register now”. There they capture the leads information. Another example, the “Pricing” landing page: Snowflake has transparent pricing options and offers cost optimisation guidance to help decision-makers evaluate the investment “At Snowflake, we keep things simple with a consumption-based pricing model that allows customers to only pay for what they use. This approach gives customers flexibility and control to easily scale up and down to meet demand — all while gaining clear visibility into their usage and spend”.

Also, Snowflakes offers live demonstrations of their platform, giving prospects a tour on its capabilities.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Pricing

Webinars

This is a classic lead magnet approach. To save their seat and have access to a 20-30 minutes sessions, users have to input their contact details. The live format allows for real-time Q&A, is creating a more engaging experience and potentially accelerating the sales process.

Snowflake’s Webinars may last longer and can include various segments, while product demos are usually shorter (often 20-30 minutes) and focused solely on the product.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Webinars listing
Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Webinar register

Free trial

Free trials are a tried-and-true method for generating qualified leads. They let potential customers experience your product firsthand and see why it’s the right choice for them. Their 30-days free trial’s value proposition is: “Start your 30-day free Snowflake trial which includes $400 worth of free usage”. So it might be a compelling reason for potential customers to try the service.

Of course, prospects needs to enter their details. Requiring users to provide contact information, Snowflake might collect lead data for future marketing efforts. During the trial, users could explore Snowflake’s key features.

This might increase the likelihood of conversion. The free trial as well as the Live demo is present on many landing pages from their website.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Free trial

Paid ads

Snowflakes uses paid advertisement to reach their target audience. On LinkedIn they have many ads, and we see many of them focusing on migration to Snowflake. They also use ads to promote the hands-on labs. The CTA button used for this labs is a registration button, where participants are required to input their contact details. They also advertise case studies. Case studies provide real-world examples of how businesses have successfully used Snowflake to solve their data challenges.

This can help build credibility and trust with potential customers. Each ad includes a clear call to action, such as “LEARN MORE” or “VIEW DETAILS”, encouraging viewers to take the next step and learn more about Snowflake’s offerings.

Overall, Snowflake’s ad strategy might be focused on educating potential customers about the benefits of their platform, building brand awareness, and generating leads.

Their LinkedIn ads typically:

  1. Target data professionals and decision-makers in organizations. Focusing on data professionals and decision-makers is consistent with Snowflake’s B2B model;
  2. Focus on educational content and migration guides;
  3. Highlight the benefits of their platform;
  4. Include clear calls-to-action (CTAs).
Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: LinkedIn Ads library
Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Linkedin Ad

Surprisingly, although on Facebook they are less active, Snowflake has run many ads here. We can see that Snowflake is specifically targeting data professionals and organizations in Japan, as shown by the Japanese language text in the ads. The ads provide educational content, such as the “SPARK TO SNOWFLAKE MIGRATION GUIDE,” to help potential customers understand the benefits of Snowflake and how to migrate to their platform.

Each ad includes a clear call to action, such as “Learn More,” “Sign Up,” or “Download”. The CTAs often lead to specific landing pages. For example, the download CTA directs prospects to a page about data and AI predictions, tailored for the Japanese market. Snowflake has shown a strong commitment to expanding in the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) market. In Japan specifically, they’ve experienced rapid growth, expanding from a 10-person company to a 200-person company in Tokyo.

There’s a high demand for generative AI and model training capabilities across Asia, including Japan. So, Snowflake’s ads in the region likely highlight these features to appeal to the local market’s interests.

Snowflake Marketing Spotlight: Japan Linkedin Ads

Conclusions

Strategy overview

Snowflake uses different channels to reach and engage with their customers. The primary channel for selling is their official website, where potential customers can explore various offerings, start free trials, view pricing, and request live demos. LinkedIn is used for promotional purposes features, solutions) sharing updates, and promoting events or webinars. They have developed a partner network and marketplace, which expands their reach and provides additional value to customers through integrations and complementary solutions. Snowflake might use data for their marketing efforts and might use ABM, to identify and target high-value accounts.

Insights – What do they do well

  • ESG at Snowflake: We liked that Snowflake has a commitment towards sustainability, diversity, and responsible governance. It can also help them position themselves as a socially responsible and forward-thinking company. More than that, ESG initiatives can appeal to environmentally and socially conscious customers, potentially attracting new clients who prioritize working with responsible companies.
  • Snowflake’s University: Snowflake offers a variety of learning formats including instructor-led classes, on-demand courses, and self-directed learning. This caters to different learning preferences and schedules, making it accessible to a wide range of customers. The emphasis on helping customers “excel” and making their “data initiatives materialize” positions Snowflake’s training as a key to success with their product. By offering training for those “just getting started” as well as those “driving advanced data projects,” Snowflake supports customers throughout their journey with the product.
  • Snowflake’s certifications: Snowflake positions their certifications as a way for professionals to “Stay ahead of the curve by validating your Snowflake AI Data Cloud skills.” This appeals to individuals looking to improve their career prospects and have a more valuable skillset – “Becoming Snowflake certified has helped me a lot with my career and personal goals.” The certification program creates a community of “SnowPros” who can advocate for the platform. This is clear in the testimonials featured on the page. To pursue certification, the “students” must create an account on Snowflake’s Certification Portal. This allows Snowflake to capture contact information and nurture these leads.
  • Snowflake’s event partnership: Here, companies can use Snowflake’s events to promote their own products, services, and ideas to a large audience. For example, the Snowflake’s Summit 2025 will take place will take place in San Francisco from June 2-5, 2025. More than networking, the event is an opportunity for Snowflake to showcase their products and innovations in front of its target audience.
  • Partner Ecosystem Development: Snowflake is investing in its partner ecosystem to drive sales. They are encouraging partners to build expertise around the Snowflake platform. This includes collaborating with industry-leading companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce, and others to develop joint solutions and go-to-market programs.
  • Book: Although not very common for a company, Snowflakes has its own book “Generative AI and LLMs for Dummies”. “This book provides an introductory overview to LLMs and gen AI applications, along with techniques for training, tuning, and deploying machine learning (ML) models.” And it’s “free” of costs. But of course, you have to provide you contact details, what did you think :P?

Recommendations for Digital Marketing Strategy

  • Create a “Future of Industries” content series using Snowflake’s data analysis capabilities to predict trends across various sectors.
  • Develop interactive “What If” scenarios for different industries, showcasing how Snowflake’s solutions can help companies prepare for potential future challenges.
  • Create an ABM campaigns using Snowflake’s data analysis tools to identify and target high-potential accounts (good for social selling).
  • Do employee advocacy programs to amplify Snowflake’s message social media – make your employees your superheroes.

If you need help with any of the above, contact us to learn more about how we can help you achieve it.

Get in touch and let’s make it happen.