The Secret to Sales and Marketing Alignment

Sales and marketing alignment is essential for any business that wants to succeed. As a business owner, It can be frustrating when the teams are not working together. Imagine one team is trying to sell a product or service that the other team isn’t even aware of, or when Marketing creates an outstanding campaign, but Sales doesn’t follow up with leads. 

When both departments work together, they can create a well-oiled machine that generates leads, converts them into customers, and helps grow the business. So how do you achieve sales and marketing alignment? Read on to find out!

What Is Sales and Marketing Alignment?

The sales and marketing departments need to work together to create a united front through a shared goal and strategy.

This is where “SMarketing” comes in. This term, which is a combination of the words “Sales” and “Marketing,” represents the two departments working closely together instead of being separate entities.

These two departments are quickly changing and need to work more closely together.

We’ll discuss the benefits of aligning your marketing and sales teams and techniques for accomplishing this.

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Companies that align their sales and marketing teams see revenue growth, better ROI, and more efficient employees.

The impact of marketing and sales working together is crystal clear. The Aberdeen Group found companies that aligned their sales & marketing operations saw 32% more YoY growth.

By aligning your sales and marketing efforts, you can increase your odds of winning new accounts and driving revenue.

With a ‘sales and marketing system, the two teams can collaborate, communicate, and work together.

The Significance of Marketing and Sales Alignment

While companies have been looking for better ways to align their marketing and sales departments, the need to do so has been driven by the rising age of the customer.

This has changed how businesses communicate, even between companies.

Today, many business buyers are conducting their research and only reaching out to sales much later in the sales process.

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With the rise of social media, customers can find information about products without brands’ help.

If companies wanted to continue conversing with their potential customers, they had to hold back on their sales pitches and instead use content marketing to fill that need for knowledge.

It’s essential that marketing and sales work together to ensure smooth hand-offs. By working together, both departments can ensure that a prospect’s experience with your company is as positive as possible.

How to Align Marketing and Sales

As with any process change, you can expect some resistance and failures. You will increase your company’s ROI while keeping your team happy.

1. Identify buyer personas and create them. This is something we cannot stress enough. Your business will reap the benefits of collaborating to develop complete buyer personas. If personas are different between teams, messaging that could be targeted at your audience becomes less effective, and your business loses the power that can easily be packed into one go. You’re wasting valuable time and resources.
2. The marketing team understands what to write, to whom to write, and where to place it to get the best ROI.
3. The Sales team knows each persona’s pain points and how to communicate the solutions.
4. Shared goals and objectives. Your marketing and sales teams work together to ensure maximum revenue generation. This goal can be achieved by a team that works together.
5. Create a plan of action. How will sales influence marketing? How will the marketing team share information about leads?
6. Have regular meetings and communication. You need a plan and a process to discuss goals and how to move towards them, create strategies, learn more about leads and prospects, and plan the content and resources everyone needs to succeed.

   Remember: These meetings should also serve as a platform to conduct comprehensive post-mortems following losses and celebrate individual and team victories.

Digitally confident customers expect transparency and consistency from their interactions with your business. Collaborative teams vet leads and manage client expectations. They also communicate throughout the process.

Harmonizing your marketing and sales departments will result in satisfied clients (and staff). It is essential to align your sales and marketing departments. This will ensure that clients and staff are satisfied.

Best Practices For Sales and Marketing Teams

Here are the best (and most practical) Smarketing strategies from fellow marketing professionals.

Have an onboarding Smarketing conference with all new salespeople.

As we begin onboarding our brand new salesforce, it’s essential that we establish best practices, share knowledge, and help each other out. Let’s use this time to network, discuss, and brainstorm how we can work together.

If you have a large sales team, it’s essential to have monthly meetings so that everyone is on the same wavelength and knows what to expect.

Get on a weekly sales meetings

At your weekly marketing meeting, you can discuss how your sales team is doing with their quota and goals. You can also provide them with any assistance they may need. Additionally, you can discuss any marketing campaigns, content or offers you plan to send to them.

Ask for blog post ideas and recommendations for future topics.

Have a standing meeting every month with sales managers.

Monthly meetings between sales and marketing teams are essential. These meetings discuss key performance metrics, such as lead gen, qualified opportunities, and conversion rates.

Go to events together.

Getting to know someone personally is a great way to build a strong relationship. So, whether it’s industry meetups, office parties, or conferences, spend some time together outside the workplace.

Knowing your sales reps personally at company events can help you build a stronger relationship with them.

Host brainstorming sessions at weekly meetings

Let’s spend a few minutes brainstorming what types of content or information would help attract more leads to your business.

Use a shared Google Docs spreadsheet to collect research and ideas

Have a shareable Google Docs document where sales can suggest ideas for blog topics or reference material.

Share your promotions on the shared calendar.

Create a calendar event with your email, social media, or marketing campaign details. Include the date, time, URL, main points, and descriptions of each offer.

Invite your sales reps to this shared Google Calendar. This will allow them to see it on their calendars and be more likely to do so.

Email the offers to the sales team

Once you’ve promoted your lead magnet, you should start getting new subscribers. Make sure to forward these leads to your sales reps with this information:

Once your promotion is live, make sure to send an email to your sales reps with this information: Offer Talking Points. Provide two or three bullet points about the offer you created. Lead Views. Send a list of the leads to your sales rep so they can take action. Quote of the Week. Like your talking point, provide a general, relevant, and data-backed quote from your recent campaign.

Create follow-up email templates for your promotions

Use offers to generate leads and re-activate old ones. Create templates for your team to use when reaching out to them.

This sales letter should be particular about the product or service and how it can help the prospect.

Write a blog post and have it posted under a salesperson’s name.

Have your salespeople write their blog posts. Transcribe their conversations, and turn them into posts.

This can help you build rapport with your lead.

Get them to use social media.

If your salespeople are active on social, then encourage them by sharing your content. You could even write up some quick copy for them, so all they have to do is paste it on their social networks.

Conclusion

If you want to improve your sales and marketing alignment, it’s important to have both departments working together. By clearly understanding each other’s goals and objectives, you can create a well-oiled machine that generates leads, converts them into customers, and helps grow the business.

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