Wish B2B Apps Talked To Each Other? Introducing The AppCloud.

I finally broke down and bought an iPhone. My hesitation over typing with a touch screen gave way to my curiosity about the world of apps.

I’ll never go back.

In one 20-minute cab ride, I paid my dry cleaning bill, uploaded a new pic to Match.com, logged into Foursquare and started looking for new cars on the Auto-trader app. I was blown away by the convenience and simplicity of it all.

But as a marketer what’s even more fascinating is that a business can learn I am single, socially active professional in need of a vehicle in just 20 minutes. In the past, getting this integrated view of the buyer was a real struggle. But in today’s world, the explosion of content distribution channels, social media services and communities makes it hard to know if buyer behavior you observe on the corporate website matches their behavior on Twitter or LinkedIn. Even when marketers have access to this cross-channel activity data, piecing it together is painful and time-consuming.

Until now. Today, we launched Eloqua AppCloud, a new open exchange for sales and marketing applications. With just a few clicks, businesses can quickly integrate multiple applications and attain a single view of the customer. Let’s say I use Eloqua for demand generation and ON24 for hosting webinars. Instead of exporting webinar attendees from ON24 and uploading them into Eloqua for follow up, I can simply browse the Eloqua AppCloud, install the ON24 Cloud Connector and voila! Now my apps are talking to each other about who did or didn’t attend my webinar.

There’s no question that from productivity standpoint alone, integrating marketing and sales technologies is a big win for busy marketers. But the benefits of integration extend far beyond saving time. A complete picture of the buyer is the end game. Every new customer interaction captured can be analyzed for its potential impact on the revenue cycle. For example, by integrating Jive and Eloqua, marketers can determine whether socially active prospects have higher velocity in the revenue cycle than just social ‘observers.’ Plugging a Demandbase connector in may help marketers measure the impact of larger buying committees on funnel conversion rates.

This video details how it works and how to get started.

Click here to view the video.

I think of Revenue Performance Management as a business strategy that fundamentally reverse engineers revenue to get at its source code. That source code is represented by thousands of customer interaction points across the entire purchase process – and across a variety of platforms and applications. The richer that data set, the more opportunities there are for businesses optimize the size, shape and velocity of their revenue cycle. For our customers, the Eloqua AppCloud is a fast, easy way to improve their understanding of the buyer and accelerate their RPM journey.  Check it out for yourself at AppCloud.Eloqua.com!