Have you heard of Smarketing? Wikipedia describes it as “the process of integrating the sales and marketing processes of a business. The objective is for the sales and marketing functions to have a common integrated approach.” And apparently, as early as 2010, this approach has yielded up to 20% annual revenue growth rate for a business.
Nine years later, the numbers are even bigger. Consider these stats:
- 58% of aligned teams say sales and marketing alignment improves customer retention.
- Companies with sales and marketing alignment are 67% better at closing deals and drive 209% more revenue.
- Decreased sales productivity and wasted marketing efforts due to misalignment costs $1 trillion a year.
Sales and marketing alignment is necessary for sales enablement. So if you haven’t actively worked on aligning your Sales and Marketing teams, these statistics should change your mind. They should be enough reason to propel you to devise a strategy to synergize these two departments.
But how do you start? Here’s how.
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9 Tips for Perfect Sales and Marketing Alignment
1. Align on goals.
The first rule of an effective sales and marketing alignment is to make sure that both teams are working toward the same goals. We start with this because all the other tips that follow are for the successful achievement of these same goals.
Aligning on goals will enforce the beautiful synergy you want to see between the two teams.
One way this can be formally implemented is by having joint KPIs (key performance indicators). Not all sales and marketing tasks are the same, yes, but certain tasks do (and must) intersect when the teams are trying to achieve the same results. These will be your joint KPIs.
2. Set up a system and structure for easy collaboration.
You cannot expect collaboration when you don’t have a structure or system that allows for it. A CRM, for example, sets up workflows that can be customized depending on what a team or organization needs. Members (from each department) can also create and store databases, insight, reports, and other relevant data in the CRM, which everyone can access.
File hosting systems like Dropbox and Google Drive can also help members share files easily. Sales can easily retrieve materials and campaign assets that Marketing creates.
3. Have a common view of the sales funnel and customer journey.
One important thing that CRMs do is track a buyer’s journey (or where they’re at in the sales funnel). Enabling both Sales and Marketing teams to monitor a buyer’s journey down the funnel—through a CRM—can help them work collaboratively to make sure the journey ends with a sale. For example: they see that Lead X did not progress down the sales funnel after a presentation. That gives both teams an idea to review the sales tools used in the presentation—and rework what needs to be reworked.
4. Streamline a process for lead generation.
Lead generation is one of the most (if not the most) important tasks of marketing. Sales relies heavily on this. So it makes perfect sense that the process for lead generation and distribution/assignment is defined and structured.
The basic setup is:
Marketing receives a lead (say, an inquiry) —> Marketing qualifies it (Marketing Qualified Lead) —> Marketing passes it on to Sales —> Sales accepts (Sales Accepted Lead) —> Sales qualifies it (Sales Qualified Lead)
There is nothing wrong with this system. Although it may evolve from time to time, it is pretty SOP. But what you need to do is define each step for both sales and marketing. So we recommend that you:
- Set criteria for qualifying leads. These usually include company size, industry / vertical, budget, need, timeline, etc. Define what a “qualified lead” is for everyone—there should be no gray areas.
- Identify a hand-off process. How will each qualified lead be handed to Sales? How should Sales handle each lead?
- Set the KPIs. This is one example of sales and marketing tasks intersecting, and where having joint KPIs makes sense. How many leads should marketing be handing to sales in a given period? What percentage of these leads must sales be converting to deals?
5. Target the same audience and speak the same language.
Having an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) or buyer personas helps in qualifying leads. Sales and Marketing should be clear on who these customers are. Make sure they are targeting the same audience. The first step is to build your buyer personas. Then cascade the information to both teams.
So both teams are targeting the same audience. The next thing you need to ensure? That they are speaking the same language when talking to their target audience. The last thing you want to happen is your marketers calling a product or service one thing, and your sales people calling it by another name. In both internal and external communications, they should have a common vocabulary.
6. Join forces for sales tools creation.
Here are two truths: Sales needs Marketing to create the tools it needs to sell. But Marketing also needs Sales’ input to create these tools. Whether it’s content marketing, an ad campaign, a special promotion, both teams need to work together to focus the message to a customer.
A quick feedback mechanism must be in place. Brainstorming sessions can also be held very week.
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7. Establish rapport and respect.
It’s not uncommon for departments to have some animosity between them. If you want perfect synergy between two departments, there should be rapport and mutual respect between them. How do you establish this?
- Initiate regular in-person interaction. Having a CRM makes things efficient but there should still be actual Hold regular meetings for brainstorming, updates, aligning agenda, and feedback reporting.
- Don’t keep it strictly business. Encourage fun activities between the two teams: team building, lunches, outings, or even happy hour at the nearby bar.
- Celebrate wins together, not as separate departments. This reinforces the fact that the two teams are partners, not competitors.
8. Share accountability.
Both teams should understand that they share the accountability in increasing sales and revenue for the company. This way, they WILL work together. If Sales is having difficulty moving a product, Marketing will step in to create a campaign to promote the product. If Marketing is struggling with content creation, Sales will provide customer feedback to help improve the messaging.
9. Make mentoring readily available
This responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the Sales and Marketing managers. Training begins with onboarding. When a new member joins either department, make sure he is oriented on your smarketing and/or sales enablement strategies and systems.
Monitor each team member’s performance and provide quick, constructive feedback when needed.
Both Sales Manager and Marketing Manager should adhere to strategies for increased productivity and revenue.
And lastly, these two should be the first to exemplify perfect collaboration. They should be working in perfect harmony if they want their teams to do the same.
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