Considering your marketing and sales teams as completely separate entities is a thing of the past – or at least it should be. Many organizations still create (and sometimes inadvertently encourage) huge silos between these two groups, often leading to disjointed efforts that can ultimately create a breakdown in communication between departments.
The truth of the matter is that the more aligned these two departments are (or two people, depending on the size of your company), the more success each one will have. Need more proof? A recent study revealed that organizations that have alignment amongst these groups achieve 24% faster revenue growth and 27% faster profit growth over a three-year period.
If you’re ready to bring about some change in your company, we’ve got some great pointers that will help you and your peers work together to achieve the same goals (crazy, right?).
1. Chat about your audience.
One of the first things you need to do is get in a room together and chat about your target audience. If you’re part of a marketing team, your organization’s sales team could have some key insights into your personas. They speak with customers (and potential customers) on a regular basis – they know the pain points and behaviors of these people well. Their insights could inform more than just your personas, including topics you might touch on in an editorial calendar.
2. Become aligned on your messaging.
The marketing and sales teams should both understand what resonates with customers, and speak to that similarly. The messaging you weave into your different marketing sales assets should include common themes and tonality. Each group needs to be aligned on what they say, what they don’t say, and how they say it.
3. A word about leads.
When a lead comes through because of marketing, there should be a basis of understanding as to what makes this lead valuable or “qualified.” Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are more likely to become a legitimate customer. Marketing automation tools, like HubSpot, often have lead scoring capabilities that help you determine just how qualified your leads are. And the best way to nail this down? Talk to your sales team! Ideally, you’ll be passing these leads off to your sales team, so you should both agree on what factors would help determine the value of your leads.
4. Unite around common metrics.
If your marketing and sales teams are not working toward the same goals, you’re most likely not on the same page. Realistically, the sales team comes into play toward the bottom of a user’s buyer’s journey (think evaluation and decision-level). And this is where a potential customer is converted into a real If your sales and marketing teams have the same revenue goal, then they’re that much more likely to work together at this point of the buyer’s journey.
5. Connect on a regular basis.
Sure, these actions are all well and good but in order to more fully integrate these teams you need to get together regularly. Whether it’s a weekly stand-up or a monthly gathering, the more often you meet to chat with one another, the more likely you are to succeed. New pain points the sales team is coming across in potential customers, the goals you’re all trying to hit for that quarter, and general team alignment can be achieved here.
This is just a jumping off point, but it’s a great way to start getting your teams on the same page and communicating with one another regularly. Sure, your marketers used to be seen as the “strategic” ones and the sales team may have been seen as the “persuasive” ones. But gone are the days of internal stereotypes, and those adjectives should be seen across the board in your organization.
Start the conversation about marketing and sales team alignment by encouraging a meet-up between key team leaders. The sooner this happens, the sooner everything else can fall into place.
Reach out to us on Twitter to share some of the ways you’ve seen marketing and sales teams work together collaboratively to achieve the same goals.