The tension between sales and marketing has long endured inside organizations. Whether this stems from unclear roles and responsibilities, unhealthy cultures, or misalignment of goals, the result to business is the same – inefficiencies, erosion of trust among employees, and ultimately lost opportunities. Here are three ways to help bridge these two disciplines inside your company.
In this Blog:
- Bring Sales into the Marketing Process
- Share Use Case Scenarios
- Create Opportunities for Collaboration
Bring Sales into the Marketing Process
This can be a challenging and scary proposition. Most marketers like to take the time to research, strategize, write, create and tie campaigns up in a bow before presenting outside their department. Sales on the other hand needs things yesterday; are fielding an ever-changing landscape of customer requests and objections; and are usually most interested in the opportunity directly in front of them. Marketing is typically working months in advance while sales are largely operating in “real-time.”
The secret is to get Sales to slow down long enough to have a conversation and for Marketing to prepare the questions and identify the information they need to support Sales efforts. It is recommended to create a timed agenda of no longer than 60 minutes. Identify one person to “facilitate” the discussion. The facilitator will keep the session on track, take notes and clarify what participants are communicating as well as deliverables with timelines. Sales is a wealth of customer intelligence that can shape messaging to simplify and remove friction from the process.
Marketers have the ability to interpret trends and apply sales intel to create connections with customers. When both teams have a voice in the process, the result is more rewarding for marketing, sales, AND customers.
Share Use Case Scenarios
It is not feasible for marketing and sales to conspire on every piece of collateral being created. Depending on your industry, there may be other stakeholders involved including product managers, research and development teams, technical experts, compliance officers, or c-suite level oversight. What is important is to educate the sales team on all of the tools at their disposal and how/when to use them.
Broad brush, you have a website presumably with information about your products and services. Perhaps there is a landing page, email sign-up, or downloadable content on said website. Does sales know which link(s) to use, so that a customer doesn’t have to click through five pages to find the product guide download? Does sales know what happens when someone signs up to receive an email? What information is included in your email nurture campaigns? Going a step further, you may have brochures, one-sheeters, videos, rack cards, pre-written emails, presentation templates, sample kits, photography, case studies or social media posts.
This is an arsenal traditionally created and maintained by Marketing with the explicit purpose of supporting Sales activity. But if the sales team doesn’t know where to find, when to use, or how to modify these materials, then the default is to create something “off-book” and/or cause frustration by requesting something that may already exist.
Communication is not a one-way endeavor or something that you can do just once. Marketing should intentionally roll out campaigns to Sales teams so they can ask questions and provide feedback, then continually remind them of the resources available to help shorten the sales cycle and create more time for them to build client relationships versus building a PowerPoint. Sales leaders should partner with Marketing to champion these communications efforts.
Create Opportunities for Collaboration
One of the best ways to foster healthy Marketing and Sales engagement is to create opportunities for collaboration and learning. Examples include ride-alongs or listen-ins on sales calls. No amount of research can replace field experience. Additionally, have Sales and Marketing partner to explore other aspects of your business.
If you have a warehouse have a joint Sales and Marketing tour of the facility. Talk to the people who are creating/packaging and/or shipping the products you are selling. Service-based industries can do something similar by having Sales & Marketing ambassadors take lunch to the accounting, administration and/or executing teams inside your organization. Be prepared to ask questions about their processes, challenges, and greatest accomplishments. These kinds of visits put things into perspective and may even lead to a great messaging hook!
Finally, if neither of these is feasible, then lean into everyone’s sense of competition and scope out your competitors. In a retail business, do a secret shop. For online, product-driven or service companies, allow Marketing to flex their research muscles for Sales by doing some good ol’ fashion digital creeping. Do it on the big screen in your conference room with pizza for an extra dose of camaraderie.
The function of marketing is to create opportunities for customer engagement and the role of sales is to foster relationships. Both are critical to helping your organization achieve its goals. We dare you to try at least one of these keys within the next month and see how it impacts your business outcomes!