We had a great time at the spring DC Eloqua User Group meeting of the year on Tuesday, April 5th! Rosetta Stone was gracious enough to host us in their Rosslyn office, boasting a great view of Georgetown and Georgetown University.

Jonathan Tam, of Sirius Decisions, gave an overview of expressing your Marketing Funnel as a Demand Waterfall. He walked through each stage of the Sirius Decisions Demand Waterfall:

• Inquiries: inbound and outbound lead activities
• Marketing Qualification: activities performed by marketing to determine which leads qualify for sales. Including any activities performed by teleprospecting teams.
• Sales Qualification: the “handshake” between marketing and sales has occurred and sales has assumed ownership of the lead. Qualified leads from marketing, as well as Sales Generated leads, are further prospected here with the ultimate goal of moving the lead to a closed deal.
• Close: the end of a great marketing and sales experience for the customer.

Once your Demand Waterfall is built, the foundation is set. From here you can develop SLAs and KPIs for Marketing, Teleprospecting and Sales – as all three need to work together to ensure leads move through the funnel efficiently.

Don’t forget reporting!  Share the most relevant KPIs in dashboards with all stakeholders. Identifying patterns in SLAs and KPIs will lead to establishing and re-evaluating benchmarks and best practices. Ultimately the goal is to use this data to identify areas to improve funnel conversion and see more revenue from your marketing efforts.

Carly Schrager presented on the Do’s and Don’ts of your MME trip. Don’t use Vegas as your remote work location and DO come prepared with your notebook and list of questions!

The meeting concluded with breakout sessions, including the Funnel, Lead Scoring and Data Management. The evening rounded out with a networking session filled with beer, wine, snacks and cornhole!   A special thank you to Rosetta Stone for hosting the event and providing us with a great view!

Visit the Washington DC Area Eloqua User Group on Topliners and LinkedIn to stay informed on the details of our next meeting!