For many businesses, sales and marketing are
delineated teams. Marketing is tasked with generating leads, while sales is
responsible for qualifying leads and getting to the sale. Unfortunately, this
can lead to a lot of dissension and opposition between the two teams, which
impacts the success of both.
Sales and marketing alignment is one of the most
important aspects of generating continued revenue for your business. What this
means is that the sales and marketing teams collaborate to reach goals, rather
than working singularly and in opposition.
In fact, businesses with proper alignment of
sales and marketing have 36-percent higher customer retention rates and
38-percent higher sales, according to MarketingProfs
.
They also achieve higher revenue growth than businesses without alignment.
Despite this, sales and marketing alignment is
something that many businesses struggle with. Here are the key elements both
teams need to work on in order to achieve proper alignment and work together to
reach goals.
Target Buyer and the Buying Process
In order to be successful with your ultimate
business goals, your sales and marketing teams must be in agreement about who
the target buyer is, as well as understand the complexity of their journey.
They must understand what they buyer is looking for, what they care about, and
why they choose to buy the products or services.
There are two critical elements in understanding
the buyer:
●Buyer personas: These provide
in-depth knowledge of the target buyers through demographics, objectives,
priorities, and challenges, all of which inform the purchasing decision.
●Buying process map: This is a
detailed view into the buyer’s journey. It’s important to understand and map
the buyer objectives, the activities they engage in, how they interpret
information, and the communication tools they use to access that information.
Both of these elements are integral to the
revenue chain, which means that they’re vital to both sales and marketing. In-depth
buyer research informs the sales and marketing processes, content, and
campaigns, giving them the tools necessary to reach the buyer in a compelling
way.
Revenue Process
Once both teams understand the buyer, next comes
the revenue process. This refers to a set of conversion points that start at
the top of the funnel — the awareness stage — and end with closing the sale.
There are plenty of conversion points throughout the funnel, but the shared
revenue process should focus on five to seven conversion points:
●Lead.
●Qualified lead.
●Opportunity.
●Demonstration.
●Proposal.
●Closing the sale.
These conversion points should be
well-understood and agreed upon by both teams, and the process of tracking and
reporting should be visible so that the process can be optimized.
Messaging
Messaging is one of the bigger challenges in
aligning sales and marketing, as well as a source of tension. Marketing tends
to focus on the messaging, while sales tends to assume that marketing’s
messages are ineffective. This issue usually arises from a disconnect between
the two teams and their individual objectives.
Regardless of how effective a message is,
however, the sales team needs to believe it and be able to use it properly in
order to make the sale. Testing only goes so far, so marketers should tag along
on sales pitches to get a real-world view of how the message comes across and
to gauge the reaction. This not only helps marketing hone in on their own
messages, but it also helps the sales team believe in the message.
Content
Content is a vital part of the selling process,
but many salespeople don’t know how to use it effectively. This can be
corrected by both teams coming to agreement and understanding about the
following:
●Content strategy.
●When to use content.
●How to use content.
●How to judge the effectiveness of
content.
Once this is achieved, salespeople have a better
understanding about how to use content, and the marketing team can focus its
efforts on the content.
Lead Handoff
Another challenge often faced by sales and
marketing teams is when to send a lead to sales. The sales team tends to think
that marketing can’t produce quality leads, due to a communication breakdown.
A qualified lead should have all the demographic
and psychographic information, which are both agreed upon by the two teams and
shared with all involved. By doing this, sales will have more trust in
marketing to deliver truly qualified leads, and all will benefit.
Revenue Service-Level Agreements
There are several service-level agreements that
need to occur between sales and marketing for alignment and success. The
marketing team should agree to a quota of qualified leads, while the sales team
should agree to a follow-up process that accounts for how quickly they follow
up and how much effort they put into the process. If the marketing team’s leads
fit the predetermined definition of a qualified lead, then sales should have no
issue following up quickly and thoroughly.
Optimization
The common theme of all these elements of
alignment is communication. The final agreement between the two teams should be
to communicate on a regular basis and to continue to optimize the process. This
can be achieved through regularly scheduled meetings to address any
shortcomings and work toward solutions.
Here are some recommended meetings:
●Revenue meetings: Revenue meetings
should occur on a weekly basis. These meetings should cover reporting metrics
at the various conversion points, the processes, and the expectations. At the
end, a plan to improve in the future and specific goals for both teams should
be reached.
●Lead generation
meetings: Both sales and marketing are tasked with generating leads and
qualified leads, so meetings should occur on a regular basis to optimize this
process. Both teams can view the metrics, specifically the conversion rate
between leads given, and provide feedback for each team. During this meeting,
the marketing team should prepare to optimize campaigns further, and the sales
team should prepare to optimize the follow-up process.
●Sales enablement meetings: Ultimately,
the sales team wants assistance from marketing in moving sales prospects
through the pipeline, and not the leads themselves. These meetings should
review the content and determine what is and isn’t working, giving both teams a
better understanding of how they can improve and reach sales goals.
These are a few recommended meetings, but
meetings can be tailored to your specific teams. Initially, sales and marketing
teams may need more frequent meetings to realize their shared goals and work
together effectively, which may change over time.
Moving Forward
Sales and marketing alignment is a critical
aspect of a successful business. Though achieving this alignment can be
challenging, the goal of these two teams is generating revenue. Once both teams
communicate openly and realize their shared goal, it’s much easier to align and
work together toward achieving that goal.