The marketing and sales teams work in a consumer-centric environment. To succeed the teams need to focus on making experiences that can help ease buyer’s issues. Instead of focusing in closing sales, reps as well as marketers must work with each other to develop content experiences that assist buyers in their journey through the buying process.
When marketing and sales teams work together they are able to unlock new opportunities, and ultimately gain new customers. For instance:
The alignment of marketing and sales can be the cause of an increase of 32% in revenue growth year-over-year.
78 percent of executives say salespersons do not have the right documents. (Aberdeen Group)
Just 6 percent of B2B marketers say they are able to accurately measure the effectiveness of their content based on indicators that measure the impact of their business in the process.
What is the difference between marketing and sales alignment?
To ensure that the customer is first in line both marketing and sales teams must work together to produce relevant, high-quality and useful content throughout the buyer’s journey. Marketing and sales alignment is based on a common determination to achieve common goals as well as objectives and business goals. Marketing and sales leaders must be in sync and devise strategies to meet common goals like pipelines as well as revenue growth.
What are the signs that the teams aren’t in alignment?
The dissociation of marketing and sales teams could cause silos that hamper collaboration. We’ve discovered that when marketing and sales teams are not aligned they are faced with common issues including:
Teams have their own goals as well as objectives and priorities.
Training for sales and onboarding takes too long
The lack of communication or cooperation in campaigns
Sales don’t have a consistent set of selling procedures
Sales struggle to guide buyers through deals
Marketing is struggling to comprehend the return on investment of their content
Alignment best practices
Enablement aims to bridge the gap and bring marketing and sales teams to achieve the same goals and objectives. When organizations start to implement best practices in enablement it could be:
Set goals for shared revenue
Sales training can be centralized and coaches for sales
Work together and identify ways to bridge communication gaps
Join forces to create buyer personas as well as the buyer’s journey
Collaboration on content for sales
Send the most popular content to sales through automation and integrations
Review content monitor engagement all through the selling cycle.
How can you promote alignment between marketing and sales?
The tradition of siloed marketing and sales teams has no place in the present B2B environment. GTM (GTM) teams must share common goals and be working towards closing deals and driving revenue. Here are some ways that your sales and marketing teams can cooperate to overcome obstacles.
Pipeline goals and shared revenue
After GTM teams are in agreement on revenue and pipeline targets Sales and marketing leaders are able to work backwards to create an action plan. If your pipeline goal is $20 million, then leaders in marketing and sales can decide how many leads will require to be generated as well as how many phone calls have to be scheduled and how many demonstrations are required to meet the goal. When they work together to create the perfect buyer experience, both marketing and sales teams can see how their respective efforts are a part of the shared outcome.
Encourage cooperation and collaboration
It’s great fun to work in teams however there is always a need for healthy and friendly competition. After you and your GTM team has set its goals and objectives for the period, it can be fun to take part in cross-functional contests and to celebrate shared and individual wins. Think about a race to 200 form conversions for marketing, or 200 demonstrations that sales people can use. All that is important is that your marketing and sales reps are in the game and are having fun. The bottom line is that both effective sales and marketing teams share an equal adversary: your rivals.
The competition can boost productivity, however collaboration can increase efficiency. It’s just natural that your sales department has the top performers. Sales reps possess important insights they can impart to their colleagues in order to enhance overall performance in the department. For instance when a sales representative is proficient in making initial calls, they could collaborate with reps who are less experienced to share information that will assist them in improving their skills.
Create communication lines that are shared
Communication is the basis of any relationship. Why should the relationships between marketing and sales be different? While both groups work towards common goals, regular periodic updates and checks-ins are required to identify gaps, progress and opportunities.
Different methods of communication are suitable at diverse levels within the business. While the marketing and sales leadership might need to meet regularly for status updates, the individual participants may only be required to attend one monthly gathering with members of the GTM team. In-person and ad-hoc channels, such as Slack as well as Microsoft Teams can be used to amazing effect when marketing and sales have channels that are shared. These are excellent settings for sales representatives to request recommendations on content in the context of a meeting they’re planning with prospects.
This is a shocking fact 70 percent of content produced by marketers is never used by the sellers. There are many reasons that can cause this problem and the most significant is managing content and discovering.
Sellers shouldn’t be able to utilize content they don’t know about. If content isn’t properly stored in a shared drive, finding it is virtually impossible. However, the best software for managing content makes it easier for marketers to store the content they produce and arrange it in that sales reps can access it easily. Quality software gives marketers and sellers tools to work together and organize content to ensure that handoffs are seamless. In the end, sales reps are able to access the information they require across the stages of sales, products or buyer personas.
Prioritize sales enablement
Businesses that employ intelligent enablement usually achieve better results. According to the annual 2021 Benchmark Report on Sales Enablement, 90% of the leaders in enablement believed that sales enablement was an enabler strategic to their company. The companies who use enablement on a large scale, incorporate enablement into all stages of the customer’s lifecycle. In 2020, the same businesses achieved 120% quota success.
Sales enablement can be a powerful tool because it’s the thread that connects the marketing and sales priorities of both departments. Prioritizing the process of enabling means that the leadership of enablement a seat in the room. Because enablement leaders assist in bring together marketing and sales teams and work with the c-suite enablement leaders can contribute towards GTM aligning at top levels of business.
What are the advantages of smart technology?
If your marketing, sales and customer service teams are an integral part of the GTM engines, the teams are able to cooperate to achieve common goals. The software for enablement provides GTM teams a collaborative environment for managing content, as well as many other functions which can be
Smart enablement goes far beyond the mere management of content. Effective enablement is a factor in every phase of sales cycle. It starts with coaching, training, and accelerating sales reps. Smarter enablement also involves giving sales reps the knowledge and tools they require to engage effectively with clients and customers. In the age of digital this means tools like social selling, customizing email templates, and even digital sales rooms.
These tools allows sellers to interact with and help buyers throughout the entire sales cycle. For instance sales representatives could initially connect with a potential buyer via LinkedIn and then follow up via email. If they make a initial call, they may draw insights from the conversation to create customized content that could be shared with the buyer via the virtual sales room. Based on the buyer’s preferences and the content that is shared by sales representatives, they can utilize the features of sales training and coaching to improve their abilities and get the most out of every buyer engagement.
What’s next?
Sales is more challenging than ever. In this digital age sales representatives have fewer chances to interact with customers and must ensure that every interaction counts. Increasing buyer engagement begins with the alignment of marketing and sales. When marketing and sales agree, sales representatives are able to collaborate with marketing to develop and access information that is most relevant to their customers. Sales enablement can strengthen this partnership by helping go-to market teams to achieve their mutual goals, and eventually, create revenue and pipeline.
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