4 Strategies for Improving Sales and Marketing Alignment in 2023
It’s hard to imagine a heavyweight like IBM ever had issues with its internal teams. Before its sales and marketing teams were aligned, they operated in silos. Its sales teams had blinkers on: they needed to fulfill product demand, get qualified leads, and hit targets.
Anything else wasn’t even on their radar. But its marketing teams were only worried about advertising dollars and messaging campaigns. The marketing team would launch a new product without consulting the sales team, which created silos and left them unable to capitalize on sales.
So, what changed?
Simple. The two teams got on the same page, built out a strategy, and worked together to close deals. Aligning sales and marketing doesn’t always mean scrapping your current process and starting from scratch.
Some tweaks to your tech stack (like adding a CRM) or a monthly meeting may be all it takes to break down barriers between your teams and improve customer experience.
Let’s take a look at why sales and marketing alignment matters and our top strategies to get it right.
Why Does Sales And Marketing Alignment Matter? Milk and cookies. Peanut butter and jelly. Sales and marketing.
Some things just work well together. Let’s start with the numbers around sales and marketing alignment. Studies show companies with good alignment will grow 27% faster over three years compared to those that don’t.
And then there’s the sales wins: the same study found aligned teams close 38% more deals. Yet sales and marketing working together mean more than sales numbers. If your teams are aligned, it leads to a ton of other benefits, like:
Better communication + efficiency
When teams are jelling, a salesperson can ping a marketing rep on Slack to ask for some help with a customer success story or case study.
Better yet, aligned teams have access to the same information, so the sales rep can jump into a shared Cloud drive to find what they’re looking for and save time.
Killer customer experience
No more bumps in the pipeline. Aligned sales and marketing teams can pass off leads at the right time and ensure customers have a cohesive experience.Not only will customers get consistent messaging, they won’t have any communication gaps and can build trust with your reps.
Shorter Sales Cycle
Give sales reps back their time to hunt out more deals. An alignment sales + marketing machine can improve the quality of leads flowing into your sales funnel and save your reps time following up dead ends.
Better marketing ROI
Your sales team can communicate to your marketing team and explain exactly what they need to close a deal.With marketing activities in sync with sales reps, lead generation efforts like product launches and case studies can be tweaked to bring in more paying customers.
But what happens if sales and marketing aren’t aligned? How does it affect your company when your teams… just aren’t in sync? Between 3 to 9 percent of teams describe their relationship with the phrase “at each other’s throat”.
Aligning Sales and Marketing: 3 Winning Strategies
The concept of aligning sales and marketing teams appears straightforward in theory.
However, the real challenge lies in its practical implementation.
For most companies, achieving alignment requires building a bridge that facilitates smooth collaboration between the two departments, enables information sharing, and provides valuable insights into customer responses.
To turn your sales and marketing into a finely tuned machine, here are my four most effective strategies:
Set Goals Together
Consider what your sales representatives perceive as a victory, and now contemplate the same for your marketing team.
Do the responses align closely, or do they diverge significantly? 😬
Examining the common grievances voiced by teams about their respective counterparts reveals that they often have conflicting views on what truly matters.
Collaborate to Create Buyer Personas
A buyer persona serves as a unifying tool for sales and marketing, providing them with a clear roadmap to reach potential customers. It reveals crucial details such as customer demographics, preferences, and pain points.
The critical error many companies make is assigning the creation of buyer personas solely to the marketing team, without involving the sales team.
Marketers may construct personas based on their perception of a prospect’s needs, personality, and preferences.
However, sales teams often possess a deeper understanding of customer objections and challenges. Without this valuable input, crafting a comprehensive and well-rounded buyer persona becomes challenging.
Use Tools that Support Sales/Marketing Alignment
A company’s tech stack serves as the cornerstone for its growth, enabling teams to enhance their selling capabilities, boost productivity, and facilitate seamless communication.
Without the appropriate sales tools in place, not only does the efficiency of your sales team suffer, but collaboration with your marketing representatives becomes nearly impossible.
It all commences with the customer’s initial interaction with your brand.
Whether they discovered you through LinkedIn, Google, or an event you hosted (where tools like Modern Events Calendar can aid in organizing successful events effortlessly), this first touchpoint sets the stage for the customer’s journey with your company.
Ready for Your Sales and Marketing Teams to Work Together?
The key characteristic shared by successful, growing companies is their ability to work harmoniously as a cohesive unit while possessing an in-depth understanding of their customers.
The marketing team actively supports the sales team by providing relevant content that aids in closing deals, and the sales team has seamless access to critical customer data at all times.
Achieving genuine sales and marketing alignment begins with an honest evaluation of your current processes.
There might be unintentional barriers in place that hinder effective collaboration between your teams.
These barriers could be minor, such as the absence of appropriate communication tools or a unified CRM database, or more substantial obstacles like the lack of regular meetings or shared objectives.
Conduct a thorough process audit, identify any issues inhibiting collaboration among your teams, and begin building bridges to foster a cohesive working environment.
In doing so, you’ll not only boost your company’s bottom line but also ensure your customers receive exceptional service, earning their gratitude in the process.
