Hello, in this video, we will discuss the alignment of sales and marketing in organizations. In many organizations, sales and marketing are two different departments within. The Marketing team is perceived to be responsible for creating and maintaining websites, sending email blasts, creating brochures and powerpoint presentations and finally… generating qualified leads for the sales people to call into. On the other hand, the sales team is perceived to be responsible for reaching out to a set of prospective customers and converting them into customers.

The involvement of marketing in the sales cycle is limited to doing custom presentations , writing proposals and sometimes… participating in the sales presentations as a subject matter expert. However, it will be great if we can strike a balance between sales and marketing and involve them as partners to win customers and to increase revenue.

The marketing team is expected to generate as many leads as possible while the sales team is under pressure to convert those leads into paying customers. This often results in the marketing teams focus on volume at the expense of quality, whereas the sales team ends up blaming the marketing team for not giving the leads that fits in the buyer persona..One way to bring these two teams together is to focus your efforts on results by giving them joint responsibility for the revenue and not just the individual tasks that define their jobs. This will let the two teams see the strategic goals in front of them rather than doing their day to day job. The two teams begin working together as stakeholders in generating revenue. They understand each other’s requirements and limitations. The joint efforts will result in a shorter sales cycle and a better profile in the target market.Here are some best practices you can use to align your sales and marketing teams:

Conduct regular meetings:

This may sound obvious, but allocating time for regular meetings can be a challenge, especially when there are deadlines to meet and scarcity of time. Whatever the case, you should always make time to catch up as these goal settings and responsibility sharing sessions play an important role in the synchronization process.You can set the milestones and the goals for both the teams. The teams need to get a good grip on the buyer personas, the sales teams campaigns, the short term goals that need to be accomplished to name a few. This will help the marketing team to be aligned with the sales teams goals and they can plan accordingly.

Marketing and Sales Metrics

Traditionally, marketing has been more about Top of Mind awareness. The main objective was to bring the potential customers to visit the website. This was not producing the desired results as this metrics were not helpful in tracking individual customers. This was not helping in effective lead generation. The metrics for effective marketing can be lead generation. The metrics for the sales teams can be No of Engaged customers, No of Proposals, No of Negotiations and No of closures to name a few. This will help in both the teams to work together and meet the metrics.

Marketing and Sales team structure

The subsequent step will be to determine the roles that both marketing and the sales team needs to play. A few of the marketing roles can be demand generation, content creation, email marketing, social media marketing to name a few.The sales team responsibilities can be split into lead generation that can be done using a Sales Development Representatives. The contact, qualify, ideate, solutionize and close processes can be done by Sales Reps.

Marketing must keep on updating sales for upcoming campaigns:

Make sure any new campaigns or content started has been approved for the sales team. This promotes a smooth front line so that the sales team can immediately engage potential customers who have consumed this new marketing material.Make sure marketing is coordinated with sales when a new email is sent or a new lead is won. This not only provides an additional insight into the customer’s interest, it also gives the salesperson an idea of what motivated the prospect to take the next step.

Feedback Mechanisms

The feedback mechanism should be established. The marketing team should give the sales team the feedback on the campaigns. This will help the sales team understand what the customers are looking for. Similarly, the sales team should communicate constantly to the marketing team. The feedback should be on the status of the meetings with the prospective customers. The marketing team will understand the customers expectationsBoth the teams can understand the customers point of view from both the sides. This will help them work together as a team

 Implement strategic content creation:

 The content creation should be done as a strategic initiative. The marketing team should reach out to the entire organization and connect with the subject matter experts. The knowledge sharing should happen from hte entire organization. Content should be an organization strategy and initiative. This should not be limited only to the marketing team. This way, the content will be very contextual and deep with the customers.

Conclusion:

In most organizations, sales and marketing have historically operated independently of one another. Rarely are two functions that work perfectly as a team with the same goal.In many cases, the two teams end up having heated conversations on how they were effective and the other team was not. Aligning these two will help in a joint responsibility and joint working.    

                                                                                                      Visit our Content Creation Service 

                                                         Visit our youtube channel to get more insight on B2B sales and on digital marketing