Grow Your Business Towards Success with an Integrated Sales & Marketing Strategy
In today’s digital age, integrating sales and marketing roles is more important than ever. Gone are the days when sales sat on the phones or walked into offices cold while marketing worked in an entirely separate department. Today, both marketing and sales teams work towards one goal: growing a business. And they need to do it together; meaning less silos.
From the first marketing touch point to the final sale, marketing and sales teams must work together to manage the customer journey during the various stages of the lead/sales funnel. They must also work together to nurture the customer beyond the sales funnel and pipeline.
But this is no simple task.
With the rise of technology and increasing consumer demands, the roles of marketing and sales are shifting in parallel. Marketing is all about generating leads, whereas sales is about converting them. These two teams should be closely integrated, but in many firms, they’re far from that.
Without a coordinated marketing and sales approach, companies can lose leads and, ultimately, revenue. So, what can you do this year to help your marketing and sales teams connect?
Here are 5 effective ways to break down the barrier and grow your business toward success:
1. Communication is Key
Barriers often exist between sales and marketing because of poor communication. Establishing transparent communication between the two teams is critical, so it must be the first step towards alignment. Regular meetings between sales and marketing teams will help open communication to give feedback on lead quality and efforts.
Because marketing is responsible for developing the message and strategy behind a brand’s products or services, this message needs to be clearly communicated to the sales team. The idea here is to help sales and marketing feel like they’re on the same team. A shared brand vision is important to establish in an organization, so all teams are on the same page and speak as one company, using one voice. The more that communication lines are opened and defined, the better.
2. Make the Buyer the Center of Attention
Marketing and sales should always make the buyer the center of attention. For both teams to be successful, marketing and sales need to be aligned on what they need from each other and what they are accountable for.
For sales to provide the greatest value, marketing must provide key insights into the customer journey and oversee delivering measurable results and data that help sales build their pipelines. In turn, improved pipelines allow marketing to get better insights into what converts prospects into customers. By providing visibility into future potential revenue and working together to convert qualified leads through pipelines, both the marketing and sales teams heighten their chances of increasing revenue.
3. Sync Your Sales and Marketing Platforms
Sales and marketing teams operate together efficiently only when their software platforms, such as a marketing automation tool and CRM, speak the same language. To successfully align the marketing and sales teams, their software platforms must be consistent, streamlined, and accessible to each other.
Marketing should support the sales team in determining qualified leads, collecting data, and delivering and observing key points and trends in the sales process. By sharing valuable data on a joint platform, both teams can see into a prospect’s full customer journey and buying cycle. In turn, helping move the customer through the sales funnel to maximize results.
4. Engage Sales in the Content Creation Process
A defined content creation process gives marketing and sales a way to work together to create compelling content. Because sales reps are the ones who know first-hand what matters to prospects and clients, they are a great source for content inspiration for marketing to then write to.
By implementing proper tools and getting a better understanding of the customer journey, marketers can optimize content to be used at specific points along the journey. This allows the sales team to serve the right type of content at the right stage in the sales cycle.
5. Regularly Measure and Monitor Results
To know if any of your efforts are paying off, it’s critical to put the right people in place to measure and monitor results and make sense of analytics and data. In a data-driven world, it’s imperative to have marketers who can accurately translate data into valuable information for your sales team to understand and use to qualify leads.
