I was listening to the radio last weekend and an advertisement for a local lawn mower company came on. I was only half paying attention because it wasn’t a song playing, but then one word caught my attention: sales.
The person talking encouraged listeners to “check out the website and see all of the great lawn products we have and then come in to the shop and let the sales team show you around.” The marketing of this radio advertisement was working hard to combine with the sales team, and there’s a buzzword going around for that…
Sales + Marketing = Smarketing (and Profit!)
For a long time in the business world, it was thought that cohesion between the marketing and sales teams was impossible. Many companies today, the two may still see each other as irrelevant, causing rifts within the office from time to time. In fact, 87% of the time sales and marketing teams talk about each other, it’s in a negative way.
However, with the rise of inbound marketing it’s more important than ever that your sales and marketing teams align. And trust me, you’ll be thanking us later when you look at your financial statements (Talk about profit, baby!). A strong sales and marketing alignment can account for up to a 20% annual revenue increase for some companies.
How to Align Your Sales and Marketing Teams
This is the difficult part. Difficult, but not impossible. Just how do you make your sales and marketing teams see eye to eye? For starters, try these steps:
- Have them use the same terminology.
- Everyone in sales should speak the same language as those in marketing. For example, you have to define what the difference between a contact and a lead is, and from there you can determine what makes a potential customer a sales-qualified lead or a marketing-qualified lead.
- Get them on the same page.
- Naturally, both teams are going to have their own set of goals, but you need to find a way to make them sync. Both sales and marketing generally have the same basic goal: increase the company’s revenue. However, each has a different way of obtaining that goal. One way to promote both to help each other is to have the sales and marketing employees pursue the same buyer persona so that they are each targeting the same audience.
- Make them explain why.
- The sales team isn’t going to understand the strategies that the marketing team puts into place (or why) and vice versa. There needs to be clear communication between each so that they can both understand why things are done the way they are. I’m not saying that salespeople should become marketing experts by any means, but if they can understand some of the underlying ideologies of the marketing team, it could easily foster additional ideas that both teams could use.
The rivalry between sales and marketing is going to be around for a long time, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t implement a solid strategy now to try and bring the two teams together. As I said before, the quicker you get your sales and marketing singing the same song, the quicker you will see a positive impact on your bottom line.
Don’t know where to get starting with smarketing? The Digital Strategists at Marketing Essentials are here to help! Give our office a call at 419.629.0080 and learn how inbound marketing can increase your bottom line today.
