You can’t increase your profits or expand your business, if there is no alignment between your marketing and sales departments. Even though they have different functions, they share a common goal and complement each other like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
When Sales and Marketing alignment happens with a common revenue goal, they start to function at an optimum level. This not only increases revenue but enhances marketing ROI, general rate of growth and productivity over a period of time.
Aligning both is not as easy as it sounds primarily because traditionally both teams believe they have different set of goals and entirely opposite expectations from each other.
Naturally, both are always seen at odds because of the misunderstanding of their goals, definition of leads etc. But with the advancement of marketing technology and inbound marketing, the line between these two departments have started blurring.
The Problem
Sales and Marketing are very different from each other and are always seen at odds and locking horns about lead quality.
While Sales complain about the lead quality, Marketing snaps back saying they didn’t try hard to close the deal. Both have challenges which should be addressed so that they can work in perfect harmony.
Different Goals
The marketing department has long-term projects that start from creating a foundation from scratch, promoting a brand, scoring and nurturing leads. Establishing a brand’s identity and engaging customers so that they can become marketing qualified leads take some time.
The sales department has shorter timespans as far as their goals are concerned. They are the problem solvers of a prospect. Sales has to depend on the marketing team to generate leads for them and sometimes they lock horn on the quantity and quality of leads.
While Sales takes upon the task to provide personal support to a prospect, Marketing looks at the long term metrics.
Misunderstood Roles
Both the departments have their individualistic way of look at their respective roles. Since marketing is more concerned about overall metrics, they tend to generate as much leads as possible. But sales on the other hand tend to disagree because they feel that to generate a lead you have to analyze and solve business problems.
Sales has to meet their revenue goals every month and sometimes it becomes difficult for them to do so because marketing has not been able to produce any leads.
Marketing activities being difficult to measure often tends to confuse sales as they don’t see any connection between marketing’s activities and profit.
The Solution
The best solution for alignment would be to break down barriers and make sure that sales and marketing understand that they are working together.
A few ways to make this happen:
Replace Sales Funnel
The idea to replace the sales funnel with a revenue cycle stems from the fact that traditional sales models are failing in the face of the modern customer simply because customers are educating themselves by conducting their own research before decision taking a buying decision. So, by syncing the marketing techniques with sales, you’re bound to get better results.
For example, consider a sales funnel.
At the top of the funnel (TOFU) you have an audience who is aware of you and soon you start nurturing them and some of them who feel like trusting you move down to the middle of the funnel (MOFU) where the sales funnel is beginning.
Marketing’s lead scoring process will determine whether a lead is an engaged customer or a target. A target would be someone who is a qualified lead and moves down the sales funnel. Now here a sales representative or an SDR can determine whether a prospect can be moved along as a sales lead or they need to be nurtured further.
Similar processes are seen at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) where a sales representative will decide whether a lead is an opportunity or needs to be further nurtured by marketing. This way, both the departments are accountable for the same goal, which is revenue. Hence the departments are bound to be aligned and work in harmony.
Strategize Together
In order to bring the departments closer, securing the same goal is the first step. Second would be to make them develop strategies that are intertwined.
a. Lead Scoring: This is a model used by Marketing to judge a prospect’s sales-readiness. It helps companies understand the position where a prospect stands in the sales funnel and how far they are from being an opportunity. But if sales and marketing come together in to the revenue cycle, this process will become more effective.
b. Lead Metrics: There are three types of leads that the marketing and sales department identify, Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL), Sales Accepted Lead (SAL) and Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).
While marketing defines who is an MQL, Sales decides the SAL or SQL. But they both tend to blame each other because of unqualified leads. However when both teams sit down to form a strategy and arrive at a mutually acceptable definition of a lead, these confusions can be avoided.
c. Service Level Agreements (SLAs): SLAs can be made to define the timeline for each phase of a revenue cycle. It decides how long the sales team has to engage an MQL or how long the marketing department has to nurture a recycled lead. It basically automates the systems so that both departments have records of contacts with leads to avoid any confusion.
SDR (Sales Development Representatives)
By involving a new team, you will be able to construct a bridge between the two departments. This team of representatives will be able to follow up on leads for better conversion rates and nurture leads that require more attention. They pick all leads and pass only warm leads to quota carrying Sales representatives. They can also be considered as a talent pool for the sales department.
Role of Technology
With the right technology, alignment between these two departments can be done by defining a shared set of metrics. By syncing the marketing software and sales automation CRMs and both departments aligning with technology, there will be an integration which will align both the departments.
Not only would that make working together easier, it would also make the system extremely transparent and the dashboards shared by sales and marketing will become the ultimate tool for spotting hot opportunities.
The Way Forward
By working together, not only will revenues increase by leaps and bounds but there will be a decrease in the cost of conducting business. Aligning both departments will help optimize the leads and save valuable time and resources.
Companies need robust Sales and Marketing departments to suceed and thrive in the market and when these two are in sync, it is a win all the way for the company.
If you want to align Sales and Marketing in your company, then technology can help you integrate the sales and marketing systems. Send us a mail and we’ll be more than happy to help you out!