Updated on December 7, 2022
The days of siloed work processes are long gone. Given the dynamic market scenario, only agile enterprises with their departments and processes in sync will come out on top. Aligning sales and marketing with customer support is a significant area of focus for organizations across industries and verticals today. To align sales and marketing is to ensure consistent revenues and high-functioning teams.
When sales and marketing teams are in harmony, they will be positioned to drive conversion wins and boost revenue for the company. Such inter-departmental alignment can extend from sales and marketing and include customer support departments.
Suggested read: 9 sales and marketing alignment statistics
What matters is how you optimize your efforts which in turn will help you grow your revenue, eventually growing the overall business. With more revenue, you can push back money to accelerate your marketing efforts, hire quality engineers and sustain accountable growth.
Marketing, sales, and customer support are integral pathways that weave a path for revenue growth.
A modern marketer is accountable for revenue (primarily a sales metric), and a modern sales guy must be market and technology aware. Similarly, the support team should have essential qualities of tech, marketing, and sales. Though usually far-seated, marketing, sales, and support need to work together for the greater good of the business.
Aligning sales and marketing with support will help you formulate and act upon your end goals more clearly. In the end, revenue growth will happen if you keep prospects aware of your platform (Marketing), make them customers (Sales), and retain them to keep on adding revenue (Support).
Aligning Sales and Marketing
Marketing and sales are the customer-facing sides of your business. Marketing brings in potential customers, which the sales team can turn into paying customers. These teams must collaborate to meet the end goals of the company — the revenue target.
Source: Whiteglovemedia
There are different responsibilities associated with the sales and marketing teams, respectively. Both teams have various tasks to perform daily. Often these teams come across as one, but in reality, they are very different from each other and have their respective tasks.
1. Prioritizing the tracking and development of mutual KPI
Usually, different key performance indicators (KPIs) are tracked and reported by sales and marketing teams. The marketing team is responsible for KPIs like lead generation and fetching organic traffic, whereas the sales team is responsible for revenue generation and new businesses. The tracking and development of KPIs on a mutual level are indispensable to an organization.
Now there is no thumb rule that the marketing team is responsible for only lead generation, and the sales team is responsible for only closing deals. Division of responsibilities among groups makes them aware of their quarterly growth to channel their energy towards one goal. The progress made by each team must be updated regularly, and data should be accessible to all team members. Sales and marketing alignment is very crucial for the development of an organization and can make a huge difference in how it operates.
Both the sales and marketing teams can help each other reach their targets. For example, if the sales team is unable to hit its target numbers, then the marketing team can come to its rescue by providing them with essential guidelines and helpful sales material, which can help in completing its target in a short period. Aligning marketing and sales teams will lead to a healthy work environment. Both teams must work together and not have a competitive drive against each other.
Similarly, if the marketing team cannot attract the desired traffic, the sales team can use their knowledge for increased lead generation. The aim is to work for the organization collectively by helping each other. High target numbers and traffic will benefit everyone, irrespective of team-specific goals.
2. Sharing accomplishments and updates
An organization needs to maintain transparency. When a team is working on inbound marketing, chances are high that the rest of the company staff may become oblivious to the content planned and published on the website. As a solution, it is essential to have regular meetings so that all the company members are informed about the content being published and produced.
Now we know why an organization must align sales and marketing. Without sales and marketing alignment, it is almost impossible for an organization to remove the communication barrier between sales and marketing teams. Also, it is essential to remember that all the accomplishments of a particular group or person should be celebrated together. Make sure that everyone becomes a part of your celebration as it promotes harmony among the employees of an organization.
3. Increase opportunities for professional growth
Doing the same daily tasks can become mundane for a person or team, possibly hampering their performance. This is why expanding your opportunities while working on your current goal simultaneously is essential. The sales team must regularly meet with the marketing team to know what they’re up to.
If a meeting is not possible, ensure that the sales team gets to read up on current Marketing trends in the market. Follow the same pattern for the marketing team as well. Aligning marketing and sales will increase the knowledge and opportunities of both teams. No team in an organization must be constructed to one tangent of a business and must have the liberty to explore.
4. Learn about each other’s work
It is almost impossible to align the sales and marketing team without giving the required time. The team leader is responsible for ensuring that everything that is expected from the team members is accomplished. All marketing team members must dedicate at least one hour a week to watching or listening to the sales call recordings.
Likewise, sales team members must dedicate one hour to reading new articles, videos, and emails generated by the marketing team. This small practice can make a massive difference in the outcome. It is a form of sales and marketing alignment that benefits the organization in short-term and long-term goals.
5. Schedule internal teach-in sessions
To reach an optimal stage of sales and marketing alignment, the marketing and sales team must learn from each other. This can be attained through the mutual exchange of knowledge with each other. Both teams can plan teaching sessions where they can share their experience and knowledge.
The sales team can help the marketing team by sharing their knowledge about providing for the customer’s needs. They can also inform the marketing team about all sorts of problems or obstacles in the sale process.
Similarly, the marketing team can help the sales team by teaching them how to use practical CRM innovation. Also, they can lead the sales team to use email tactically and share insights regarding upcoming content plans.
Also read, How Chatbot and Email Marketing can Automate Your Marketing Campaigns in 2022
Problem sales and marketing alignment can solve
Sales and marketing alignment is the common goal of almost all companies, but only a few can accomplish it. Problems such as volatile market dynamics, scattered workforces, and internal politics in organizations may make it difficult for a company to overcome the problem related to sales and marketing misalignment. There are a lot of benefits associated with achieving sales and marketing alignment. Here are the issues that can be solved through alignment-
1. Scattered/disorganized customer data
By aligning your sales and marketing strategies, an organization can ensure the centralization of technology to deliver excellent results.
2. ROI that’s hard to identify
In an intricately structured organization, it can become difficult to assess the area that needs investment. Through alignment, an organization can achieve total transparency, which helps in analyzing the area that needs more attention and investment.
3. Inefficient lead handoffs
Lead-offs can be very burdensome, thus causing problems between sales and marketing teams. Due to the generation of hundreds of MQLs at an event, the sales team may end up complaining about the inefficiency of the market leads. But through mutual compliance and alignment, both teams can ensure more operational clarity and functioning.
4. Improper use of sales content
A majority of sales content goes unused as a consequence of sales and marketing misalignment. Through proper alignment of sales and marketing practices, an organization can ensure the optimum utilization of all the content to avoid any content and time wastage in the company.
5. Ineffective growth
New business strategies can become ineffective and bland after a point of time. Alignment can help overcome this problem by understanding contemporary business dynamics, considering customer feedback, and implementing it to derive favorable outcomes.
You might also want to read Shopify Marketing Strategy: 8 Effective Tactics to Skyrocket Your Sales
Best practices for sales and marketing
Sales and marketing alignment is crucial for the sustainability of any business organization. A company must acknowledge necessary measures and implement them to ensure proper alignment. Here are some of the best sales and marketing practices-
1. Have regular meetings
Communication is a significant factor in sales and marketing. Not only it helps in maintaining an excellent level of transparency, but it also helps in overcoming communication barriers. Here are a few tips for the same-
- Meetings with new joiners– Have an onboarding meeting with all the newly recruited salespersons in your company. This helps in clearly understanding their expectations from your organization and what you, as an organization, can deliver to them.
Weekly sales meeting- Organising weekly sales meetings helps analyze the organization’s performance throughout the week and discuss the changes that need to be made.
Meeting with sales managers– Marketers and sales managers must also meet at least once a month to analyze the performance and assess their service-level agreement.
Attending events together- Spending recreational time with your sales and marketing teams is very important to know them personally and understand their behavior outside the work environment.
2. Create an email ID for official purposes
All sales department members must have an email ID for official purposes. Through this ID, they can get and share all the information about work.
3. Streamline the content creation process
A lot of time, there is a lack of understanding between sales representatives and leads. Both ends or not understand each other’s initiatives and expectations. This process can be broken down and made a lot easier through these steps-
Having brainstorming sessions- As a team, the sales department must have a small brainstorming session to put forward the prospects they would like to present in front of the clients.
Standard spreadsheets- Have a shared Google spreadsheet where everyone can add their ideas so that all the new ideas are stored collectively.
4. Connect content marketing and sales
The marketing team keeps introducing new business strategies and offers in an organization. The sales team needs to know about these new strategies so they have information regarding what contemporary facilities their clients are getting. Here are the steps through which you can connect your marketing team with sales-
Have a mutual promotional calendar– Always have a Google calendar with fixed dates for promotional events, offers, and descriptions.
Collate offers with the sales team– Now that the marketing team has promoted all the new offers and generated leads, it must send all the information to the sales team regarding these offers. Make sure that you briefly define all the recommendations that the company has launched.
The Final Word
To align sales and marketing is to ensure that your company handles customers with greater efficiency and ease. All you have to focus on is introducing shared goals for all departments involved, promoting healthy communication, and sharing resources effectively. Progressively doing these tasks will ensure your company has the edge over its competitors and will reach new heights of profitability.
At Kommunicate, we envision a world-beating customer support solution to empower the new era of customer support. We would love to have you on board to have a first-hand experience of Kommunicate. You can signup here and start delighting your customers right away.
