Sales and marketing are traditionally viewed as two separate departments. However, it wasn’t until recently that companies began to understand the benefits of aligning their sales and marketing strategies and making them work together towards the common goal – increased revenue.
Still, sales and marketing alignment can be challenging, and you are likely to come across various difficulties. So, we compiled a list of the obstacles you should expect to come across and how to deal with them.
Poor communication between your sales and marketing departments can be the result of many things – independent development, unclear responsibilities, ineffective tools, etc. And you must address this issue, as it can lead to decreased productivity and increasing costs.
One of the ways to improve communication is to schedule regular feedback meetings. It can be very beneficial to have the two teams together in the same space (virtual or physical), discussing ideas and working on the problems. In these meetings, they can discuss the following:
While marketing concentrates on generating and tracking leads, sales representatives are trying to convert those leads into customers.
It is often the case that the marketing department isn’t providing quality leads to sales and the two worlds end up colliding. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to fix this.
Marketing metrics focus on evaluating the efficiency of marketing campaigns, while sales metrics evaluate overall business performance. The two teams are commonly working and assessing success separately.
To maximize your results, your marketing and sales teams should have an insight into all relevant key performance indicators (KPI) results. These indicators are important for targeting problems and coming up with fast solutions.
We are going to explore some of the most important marketing and sales KPIs.
Marketing KPIs:
Sales KPIs:
The sales teams can provide the marketing department with better insights into customers’ behavior. This will help the marketing department create more personalized marketing campaigns, ultimately leading to better results for both marketing and sales.
It is more than obvious that the two teams can benefit just from knowing each other’s KPIs and results. This will enable them to work together towards a common goal – revenue.
From the sales point of view, an incorrect email address or phone number means substantial time wasted on tracking down accurate contact information.
From the marketing point of view, inaccurate data means that their campaign might not reach the right person, which can lead to a high email bounce rate.
Thankfully, a team of good web application developers can create a data platform that can easily solve problems related to inaccurate data. These platforms allow your business to acquire, store, prepare, deliver, and administrate all your customer data.
Setting accurate customer data in one place is beneficial for both marketing and sales.
Understanding who your customers are is what can make or break your business. This is why it’s crucial for marketing and sales to join forces in creating more quality leads that convert to customers, and in order to do so, both teams will need to have a firm grasp on who your customers are.
With sales and marketing alignment, everyone is informed about the tactics your competitors use. This helps your sales team prepare for answering the questions about why your products or services are better than your competitors’.
Without alignment, your sales team would be in the dark on this information, and they wouldn’t be able to benefit from knowing certain lead objections or competitor comparisons before they’re presented.
With sales and marketing alignment, your revenue and conversion rates increase because your teams are both working towards the same goal. This results in a shorter sales cycle and a more accurate sales target.
By planning and enabling alignment, the company acknowledges the impact of both your marketing and sales efforts.
When the two sides work on strategies for launching marketing campaigns, attracting leads, and converting them into customers, their chances of success increase.
Both sales and marketing gather relevant feedback from customers as they interact with them on different levels.
Sales and marketing alignment facilitates sharing this valuable information. That creates a better understanding of how to reach higher conversions and win rates because both can understand and find strategies that address customer pain points.
Aligning sales and marketing comes with many challenges, but the end result is worth the effort. For assistance with this contact us! Book a complimentary 30 minute discovery call to see how we can meet your specific needs. Click here to book your call now!