The problem isn’t new. It’s been around for ages. I hear the conversation consistently, “Our marketing and sales teams don’t work together and we’re losing business opportunity because of it.”
Aligning sales and marketing teams today in both B2B and B2C organizations is critical to ensure that ROI becomes the responsibility of the entire organization, not just a select few.
In fact, according to the State of Inbound 2016 report, when sales and marketing are aligned, they tend to produce the most measureable results.
This data also correlates with supporting research that indicates that businesses that have the highest alignment with sales and marketing:
- Aligned organizations achieved an average of 32% annual revenue growth while less aligned companies reported an average 7% decline in revenue – Forrester Research.
- Aberdeen Group reported that highly aligned organizations managed to achieve an average 32% annual revenue growth over the past year compared to an average 7% decline for their less well-aligned competitors.
- The effect holds true over the longer-term, as well: SiriusDecisions found that B2B organizations with tightly aligned sales and marketing operations achieved 24% faster three-year revenue growth and 27% faster three-year profit growth.
- MarketingProfs, in a landmark joint study with MathMarketing, found that organizations with tightly-aligned sales and marketing functions enjoyed 36% higher customer retention rates and achieved 38% higher sales win rates.
Alignment Strategy
Traditionally, marketing’s job has been to generate leads, and sales’ job has been to convert those leads to sales. However, in actual practice, marketing and sales need to work together, aligning their roles and goals. Successful organizations that focus on alignment of their marketing and sales strategies, have several powerful attributes in common:
- Developed and actively manage an inbound marketing strategy.
- Developed and actively follow service level agreements.
- Developing common agreed-upon language around leads in each stage of the sales funnel.
- Developing clearly defined lead nurturing and sales processes.
- Establishing weekly SLA focused sales meetings.
- Developing a system for content development and easy access by the sales team.
- Utilizing a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system and automated marketing platform to obtain data for analysis and decision making.
Final Thoughts
A recent SiriusDecisions poll of 300 sales leaders highlights this: “The top third of the sales cycle has gone away. Salespeople believe that the beginning of the traditional sales process has evaporated and that buyers are self-servicing their needs instead of engaging with salespeople.”
Sales and marketing need to align more than ever before to keep pace with this changing paradigm.
If you’re experiencing:
- A decrease in sales reps not making quota
- A decrease in closed deals
- A need to improve the understanding of your buyer's buying process
- A need to improve your organization's’ ability to adapt your sales processes to the changing market environment
- A need to shorten sales cycles
