Customers are bombarded with advertisements on a daily basis. In an oversaturated digital landscape, they are hungry for meaningful interactions. The public wants a deeper connection with a brand. So if you want to grab customers' attention, you need to create an immediate and seamless experience that meets their individual needs.
Building this experience would not be possible without a sales and marketing channel, and the gap between sales and marketing teams continues to widen. This costs companies more than a trillion dollars a year, according to the Super Office. Research has shown that 85% of companies believe that marketing and sales alignment is their biggest opportunity to improve business performance today.
If you find a mismatch between sales and marketing, don't worry. You are not the only one facing this challenge. Here are four key steps you can take to bridge the gap between your team:
1. Create the right organizational structure. Often the disconnect between sales and marketing teams starts with structure. Much of the buying process in today's marketplace happens digitally. As customers conduct more independent research, sales messages need to be more relevant to marketing. But who is responsible for what elements?
"For leaders, the goal of fostering the right mix between sales and marketing is to create the right organizational structure by defining roles, governance, accountability and the ability to achieve goals," said Thomas Manders, founder and CEO of Coffee + Dunn. , an experienced connected partner focused on providing customer-centric engagement solutions that drive growth. "This will help manage the customer lifecycle and ensure that every part of the buying process is accounted for and managed, including demand generation, customer service, content, business development and product management." ".
By clarifying the structure and responsibilities of your sales and marketing team, you will help eliminate any confusion. Everyone will understand their responsibilities and know how their combined efforts contribute to your company's bottom line.
2. Align key performance indicators.
Measuring futility has always been a problem in marketing. After all, no one wants to lose face, and ROI from multi-channel marketing can be tough. Sales teams, on the other hand, often set revenue goals that reward performance. This creates an immediate conflict between quantity-based marketing metrics (eg, likes, shares) and quality-focused metrics (eg, average transaction size, customer lifetime value). ) about the sales.
"Often the problem is that the two functions measure different things," says Jeffrey L. Cohen, director of analysts at Gartner's for Marketing Leaders. “For example, many marketing teams are responsible for delivering a certain number of leads (or qualified marketing leads). This is convenient for the solution, it is difficult to make a deal. When both teams measure themselves based on their revenue impact, they can look at results based on the same type of metrics. "
By agreeing on specific common metrics and reporting on them, you'll align your team and save time and effort comparing performance reports.
3. Build a communication process.
Once the organizational structure is established and KPIs defined, you can focus on enabling implementation strategies and improving communication. As a McKinsey study shows, employees who feel engaged in communication at work are almost five times more likely to report higher productivity. By improving communication between sales and marketing, you help both teams succeed.
For some companies, this may mean scheduling regular audits or brainstorming meetings. For example, Megan Flannery, director of revenue marketing at Drift, says her company holds weekly collaborative meetings for the marketing team, sales development team, account executive team, and partner team.
“These are four established teams with revenue targets, broken down by segment,” Flannery said. “Each of these vital teams reports on their growth and benchmarks their performance against other groups. This ongoing communication and collaboration helps ensure that the process works together and overcomes any inconsistencies.”
4. Create customer profiles.
Just as you can present the same camping trip in different ways to three different friends (such as pointing out a scenic hike, a short camping trip, or an Instagram-worthy photo opportunity), you need to understand the appeal of your business. for a wide audience. An effective way to do this is to create Buyer Personas so you can understand the specific needs, preferences, and personalities of different target segments.
"Many entrepreneurs skip this step to save time, but ignoring this step will ultimately hinder your success," says DMNews editor Abby Miller. “Developing a data-driven customer profile for your company will help sales and marketing move away from entrenched biases. Personal messages also help your team members express conflicting opinions and ask questions in a way that doesn't make the conversation personal. Instead of your sales leader telling your marketing team, 'That won't work,' the objection can be phrased in a less confrontational way."
By using customer personas, you'll better target your marketing team, help them understand the right ways and formats to share your messages, and gain insight into audience behavior. This information can be shared with your sales team to further personalize the buyer experience.
Getting marketing and sales on the same page is never easy, but it is possible. Follow these four tips and you'll be amazed at how quickly and effectively both teams will regroup.
