As marketing moves into the cloud, companies have access to an ever-expanding landscape of applications that promise to help them get more from their marketing investment. Your toolbox is likely already packed with cloud solutions – from your CRM system and your marketing automation platform to tools for managing webinars, content, events and social.  Here’s an image (borrowed from Scott Brinker, President and CTO of ion interactive) that illustrates this explosion of technology:

Each of these applications plays a role in your marketing process – helping you fill the top of the funnel, nurture and qualify leads, or move prospects through the sales cycle.  And, each of these systems houses valuable data about buyer behavior. However, if these applications can’t communicate with one another, it’s hard to put the pieces together to drive marketing results. Plus, you are stuck with the mind-numbing task of moving data between platforms – something no marketer wants to add to their already-long to-do list.

That’s where integration comes in ...

When SaaS vendors invest in integration, marketers win. You have the flexibility to choose the right tool for the job without sacrificing the efficiency and effectiveness of your marketing programs.

ReadyTalk is on board. We have already built out-of-the-box integrations with some of the tools that marketers rely on most, including Salesforce, Eloqua, Pardot, and SurveyGizmo and we are partnering with other vendors to build additional integrations.  Plus, our open API gives our customers the flexibility to integrate our webinar platform with other business-critical applications.

So, how can integration help you drive better results?

Here’s one example …

With ReadyTalk for Salesforce, you can allow your sales reps and account managers to invite customers and prospects to your webinar in seconds directly from the Lead or Contact record. This expands your reach to help you drive more registrations. Then, after the event, you can instantly capture data like whether or not someone attended your webinar (and how long they attended) and even that person’s specific responses to polling questions asked during the event. Use this valuable insight to measure engagement, ensure timely and relevant sales follow-up, and, ultimately, drive better conversion rates.

Interested in learning more about the value of integration? Read the American Marketing Association and ReadyTalk white paper “Convert Leads Faster by Integrating Webinar, Marketing and Sales Platforms.”

Want to hear more about ReadyTalk for Salesforce? Visit us in booth #1429 at Dreamforce or sign-up for a demo here.