Unify your teams with these marketing and sales alignment strategies for easy and incredibly fast results
Take a look at any business from the outside-in, and you’ll assume that sales and marketing go together like peas and carrots. Take a step closer, and you’ll see a group of peas on one side, carrots on the other, and a vast space of nothing in between. There’s a disconnect.
As a business owner, how do you attain marketing and sales alignment? How can you meld together processes, unify goals, and create a healthy back and forth between these teams?
The anchor is your customer. She is the center of gravity that pulls together every element of your business. Marketing and sales alignment focuses on her journey, service quality, and lifetime value.
Once you gather sales and marketing teams under the same roof, the objectives become clearer. And the granular aspects of unifying processes is easier than before.
3 Tips to bring your marketing and sales into sync
1. Outline “customer journeys” in each marketing strategy and find meeting points with sales
Alignment begins with establishing meeting points between sales and marketing efforts. On the front-end, marketing comes first. That’s how customers find you.
A healthy company invests in building multiple marketing channels. So there are several ways a customer makes contact, get qualified, and travels toward a purchase.
The first step is breaking down each of those marketing channels.
- What are the defined stages of contact?
- Who qualifies–the salesperson or the marketing funnel?
- Where does the salesperson come in? How will they know?
- Are the transitions automated or is communication necessary?
- Will the salesperson know how the prospect found your company or the steps they’ve already taken?
2. Look for smooth transitions between lead qualification and delegation among salespeople
There’s often a lot of tension in sales departments regarding lead delegation. If the process of handing out leads doesn’t seem fair, then problems arise, and people get frustrated.
Marketing folks typically don’t want any part of that argument. They do their jobs either way: get the people in the door. Who gets that particular lead doesn’t matter.
Hence the marketing and sales alignment issue.
But there is a way to influence easier transitions and fair processes by including marketing strategy. It starts by driving lead traffic through qualifying steps and structured capture points.
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For instance, what happens when marketing messages list the company’s phone number? Call us now for a limited-time offer!
They call in. But who gets the lead? Where does it go and how does it reach the right salesperson? It’s a mess.
But if you set up a website form and send that lead directly to a CRM system, the sales manager can delegate with fairness and ease. Now marketing channels are in alignment with sales processes.
3. Improve each other’s efforts by asking customers for feedback
A hidden benefit of marketing and sales alignment is performance evaluation and improvement. Once again, it all revolves around the customer. Except now you ask for feedback on each other’s processes.
On the front-end, a customer connects to your company through a marketing channel. She finds her way to a salesperson and continues down the funnel to purchase. After the purchase, she funnels back into the hands of the marketing team in the form of referral programs, newsletters, email promotions, online reviews, etc.
This “customer journey” has many opportunities for feedback, both on the front-end and back-end.
Let’s say the “lead” makes her way to the point of talking with a salesperson. From that point on, until she makes a purchase, the salesperson can ask about the customer’s experience with our outreach efforts.
- How did you find us?
- Was the information on our website or brochure helpful?
- Was it easy for you to contact us?
- Why did you decide to contact our company instead of X, Y or Z?
This kind of feedback can help marketing teams improve their strategies, especially if EVERY customer gives an answer.
On the other side, after the customer makes a purchase and goes on her merry way, the marketing team can ask questions. Let’s say you send an email follow-up:
- How would you rate your experience with our sales representative?
- Did you find it easy to navigate purchase options?
- Is there anything you feel we could improve upon next time?
Now the marketing team is providing direct feedback to the sales team. That is marketing and sales alignment working at its best.
Automate your marketing and sales follow-up for faster results. Schedule a free demo and see how Blitz will change your business!
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