By Bob Harrell
The gap between marketing and sales is wide and all-too-common, often negatively impacting company growth. Their poor communication and coordination is surprising considering the obvious overlap in expertise and focus: Marketers are responsible for building awareness of the brand and attracting business prospects, while salespeople are responsible for converting those leads into paying customers. As such, these specialized teams are two sides of the same coin, so could and should seamlessly partner to maximize revenue.
Instead their talents are often squandered through a lack of transparency that destroys trust. Marketers hold their strategic cards close to their vests, applying proven principles in audience targeting and brand positioning to craft the most effective messaging. Success is based on creating compelling messaging that differentiates the brand and motivates consumers to action. Salespeople ostensibly use that messaging as a starting point for creating customer relationships that culminate in a conversion, ideally repeated over the long term.
Cultivating a Coordinated, Cohesive Approach
When their symbiotic relationship works, marketers empower the brand to enter the mind of the potential customer, who is then encouraged to buy due to their personal engagement with the salesperson. When marketing and sales are at odds, the marketers complain the sales force has gone rogue, while the salespeople complain the marketers are giving them bad data to work with. The end result is a breakdown not only in communication and collaboration across teams, but a disconnect between how a brand describes itself and how customers perceive its benefits.
Today’s highly competitive business environment demands synergy between marketing and sales teams more than ever before. A well-coordinated and cohesive approach can lead to increased lead generation, higher conversion rates, and ultimately accelerated revenue growth. Yet most commercial organizations still struggle with that gap between marketing and sales, potentially lethal for the company they represent. Let’s explore the top 5 strategies for bridging the marketing and sales gap to enhance your commercial organization’s performance.
1. Establish Clear Shared Goals
Create a unified vision and define shared objectives for both marketing and sales teams. A fundamental, open, and direct approach ensures that everyone is working towards the same targets. and can collaborate more effectively without fear of criticism or boundary violations. Set specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that align with your company’s business objectives, and review them regularly to ensure both teams stay on track. Schedule weekly check-ins to assure transparency, build and sustain trust between teams.
2. Implement a Service Level Agreement (SLA)
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a documented agreement between marketing and sales that outlines each team’s roles, responsibilities, and expectations. An SLA can help establish a mutual understanding of how the two teams will work together and support each other. This includes defining the criteria for marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales accepted leads (SALs), setting expectations for lead follow-up times, and outlining lead nurturing processes. Regularly review and update the SLA to ensure it remains relevant and effective in guiding the teams’ collaboration, and use it to guide weekly check-ins and ongoing dialogue.
3. Foster Open Communication & Collaboration
Transparency is at the heart of collaboration, and its absence is what destroys organizations from the inside, out. That’s especially true for marketing and sales teams, whom as we’ve seen like to do things their own way. Overcoming personal ego and departmental tribalism are key, fostered by the regular sharing of updates, insights, and challenges. Showing vulnerability encourages communication, and presents an opportunity to discuss new marketing initiatives, review sales performance, and identify areas for improvement or collaboration.
4. Leverage Data & Analytics
Data and analytics play a crucial role in understanding the effectiveness of marketing and sales efforts and identifying areas for improvement. Both teams should have access to relevant data and use it to inform their strategies and tactics. This includes tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as lead generation, conversion rates, and revenue attribution. By sharing data and insights, marketing and sales increase transparency, better understand each other’s contributions, and more successfully collaborate to optimize their cross-team efforts.
5. Invest in Training and Professional Development
Closing the marketing and sales gap often requires improving the skills and knowledge of both teams. Invest in regular training and professional development programs to help team members stay up-to-date on the latest industry trends, technologies, and best practices. Cross-functional training is particularly beneficial, as it helps both teams gain a better understanding of each other’s roles, responsibilities, and challenges. Shared understanding leads to more effective collaboration, and a greater appreciation of each team’s contributions to company success.
Bridge the Chasm
Bridging the marketing and sales gap is essential for driving growth and maximizing the effectiveness of your commercial organization. By formalizing communication touchpoints and tools, and encouraging the use of data and analytics to inform and verify, transparency is enhanced and trust engendered between teams otherwise suspicious of each other. Collaboration tools such as shared project management platforms, instant messaging applications, and video conferencing software can also help bridge the stubborn divide.
The end result turns negative feedback into positive, bringing out the best in marketing and sales through their complementary and symbiotic relationship to each other. For instance, sales teams can provide feedback to marketers on lead quality, in turn helping marketing refine their targeting and messaging, while marketing can share insights on the most effective channels and tactics for driving sales, thereby improving lead quality and heightening conversions for the sales team. Respecting talent, enhancing transparency, and building trust are keys to success.
Need help driving better collaboration between marketing and sales? Get in touch.