Syncing Marketing with Sales builds Synergy
In many companies, the sales and marketing teams don’t like each other very much. Sales reps complain that marketers deliver them leads that aren’t worth the effort to close a sale. In response, marketers say that sales reps are too lazy to work the good leads they’ve been handed and are only interested in a quick deal. The disdain that sales feels for marketing – and vice versa – is so widespread that a recent survey of sales and marketing executives by the Corporate Executive Board found that 87% of the terms the two groups used to describe each other were negative.
Sales and marketing success only comes when each side puts aside resentments and works toward shared goals that benefit the entire company. This process goes by the name “sales and
marketing alignment,” and seeks to foster better communication and collaboration between sales and marketing teams to achieve the same result: generating more business. Alignment may involve a variety of steps including:
- clearly defining what makes up a "sales ready" lead
- establishing shared goals
- focusing on lead quality and quantity
- use lead scoring to identify sales-ready leads
- establishing new processes and measurement tactics to manage the sales and marketing funnel holistically
- nurturing leads that are not sales ready
- sharing lead intelligence with the sales team
- tracking sales follow-up activity in a CRM system, and
- holding regular meetings to discuss results
Sales alignment will establish a structure and process that helps marketing and sales teams work more collaboratively and effectively to attain shared goals, and be held accountable for their work based on hard data.
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