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SALES AND MARKETING
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Sales and marketing are two very
distinct specialities; both have
differing short-term goals and there’s
often friction between the two. Yet
neither discipline works in isolation
and to get the best returns for any
business, they need to be closely
aligned.
The important thing is that the ultimate
goal – increased revenue – is the same
for both teams. Research shows that
companies that are best at aligning the
two functions experience average annual
revenue growth of 20%.
The key to success is making sure
everyone is on the same page and, for
this, communication is key. If both teams
define a ‘qualified lead’ or ‘buying process’
in the same way, they can work closer
together on achieving what each needs.
Collaboration between the two disciplines
to define how they will create, qualify and
measure the quality of leads generated
helps to break down barriers.
Communication with customers is
also vital. The traditional sales funnel is
no longer as rigid as it once was. Today,
customers educate themselves long before
making a buying decision and sales people
aren’t their first port of call for product
information the way they once were.
Marketing activities now need to last longer
within the customer buying cycle, seeding
information that customers can find online
before they ever speak to a salesperson.
Understanding the customer touch-
points and creating consistency in
messaging through marketing and within
the sales team have big roles to play in
ensuring the impression a customer has
is, firstly, the right one and, secondly,
continues through their interactions with
the business.
Defining your target audience
One of the best ways for marketing and
sales to start communicating effectively is
to define the target audience. Making sure
both teams have the same audience in
mind will go a long way towards helping
them work together and understand where
each is coming from.
Creating a specific audience profile
allows you to focus your marketing on
attracting those clients that will most
benefit your business. If your sales team
knows that the best leads come from
people interested in a particular feature or
from a particular demographic, then your
marketing should take this into account.
Don’t be afraid to narrow down your
audience; you can be far more targeted,
more relevant and more engaging to a
smaller audience than you can be if trying
to appeal to everyone.
When you start defining your audience,
you need to understand the problems that
your product or service addresses. Without
that knowledge, you won’t know who has
the problems that you can solve, which
makes defining them and marketing to
them difficult!
Profile your existing customers. What
are the trends? Are there specific features
that the majority display that you can
incorporate into your marketing? Again,
this is where sales and marketing can
combine knowledge for greater success.
Once your target customer is defined,
marketing can work on attracting that
customer using effective strategies,
providing sales with better quality leads
from the start.
Sofia Dahlqvist, owner of full-service marketing agency 55 Connect,
explains how to align sales and marketing for the best returns and
faster business growth.
Accelerating growth
with the right business
alignment
Generating the RIGHT leads
Marketing is obviously designed to
generate leads; without that, there’s
not a huge amount of point to it. The
difficulty lies in ensuring the leads that are
generated are the right ones; the ones that
will convert into paying customers; the
ones that won’t waste your time.
But there’s more to marketing than just
creating leads and then leaving everything
to the sales team to follow up. Marketing
should support sales activities and nurture
potential new customers throughout the
whole buying process.
Sales and marketing teams should work
together to agree a method of ranking or
cataloguing leads. Once a new lead comes
in, it should be ranked according to the
agreed method, which will make it much
clearer which team should take ownership
of the lead.
Very early on in the buying cycle, new
leads may not be ready to make a firm
decision and will need lots of information
and handholding. This is the ideal point for
marketing to take the reins. Nurturing that
lead, providing information and remaining
in regular communication is a perfect fit
with marketing activities.
As leads get closer to buying, or where
they have more complex needs or are a more
high profile client, the sales team should
step in. At this stage, the lead is much more
likely to buy and the sales team can start
leveraging the marketing communications
and brand profile to close the sale.
55 Connect is a full-service marketing
agency, passionate about helping
companies to bring their brands to life.
With so many paths to go down – offline,
online, digital, PR, events – 55 Connect
helps companies to ‘connect’ the dots and
make the smartest marketing choices for
their organisation.
Creating
a specific
audience
profile
allows you
to focus your
marketing
on attracting
those clients
that will most
benefit your
business
