3 Things Absolutely Needed to Align Marketing and Sales

Alignment is a term that gets thrown around a lot when it comes to marketing and sales, and on the base level it seems simple. Marketing informs about a product or service, and sales close the deal. Both are working towards the same goal: the success of the business, they’re aligned, right??

Well, it’s a little deeper than that. True alignment is when there is a natural flow between the two departments, passing leads back and forth seamlessly, creating a journey for each customer to follow from discovery all the way to a closed deal.??

Sounds great, right? But how do you get there? Well alignment is something with many moving parts that require upkeep, but there are three things necessary to start aligning marketing and sales.??

Set Metrics and Goals for Success???

Let’s say you AB test a marketing campaign. One version increases the average order size of existing customers, but does not attract any new leads, the other creates a lot of interested leads asking to learn more but has lower approval from your existing clients. Which one of these performed better? How can you tell??

It’s impossible to say something had a positive impact without first figuring out what positive means for you. Either one of the previous examples could be “better” depending on the goals you set.?

Make sure your goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.) Instead of just “we want an increase in signups for our subscription service,” something like “we want an increase in new client signups by 10% after 3 months” is much more actionable and keeps everyone on the right track by giving both departments a common goal to work towards. While this is a great start on the road to alignment, there are a few more things to get in order before things are truly in sync.?

Create a Well-Defined Sales Process?

While every sale is an entirely unique experience, there should still be a general framework to how you interact with your customers. I didn’t just call it a journey at the beginning to sound fancy, your sales process should guide your customer along their journey, starting from first contact all the way to a sale. To do this, you must have a plan.?

Not only should there be steps that your account manager is following but what signs of continuing engagement are you expecting for the prospect. All your customer-related activities can be tracked in your CRM. Everything from simple email opens to direct sales calls gives you valuable information. Maybe if someone clicks on the links in multiple emails, it's time to give them a call, or if a prospective customer is being a little too noncommittal to go for a close, it’s time to send them more marketing materials.?

These are just some basic examples of what part of a sales process could look like. No matter what you decide works best for your business, there needs to be some sort of “flowchart” to how marketing and sales interact with customers. Without it, there is no journey, only one-off emails, calls, etc., leading to disconnected communication.?

With a common set of goals and a solid sales process, you are well on your way to alignment. However, there is one last key piece you absolutely need to make all this possible.?

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Have a Well-Maintained Digital Ecosystem?

The last, and probably most crucial piece required for alignment is something that will benefit your entire business. In today's world, data is important, but more important is how you manage that data.?

Exporting, uploading, and comparing data between two departments is too time consuming to make agile decisions. For any of this to work, marketing and sales need access to the same information at the same time. That means apps that integrate and report back directly to your CRM. If everyone is working on the same platform with the same data, following along your sales process and measuring your progress towards goals becomes a much simpler task.?

If you want to learn more about how you can better leverage your technology and close more deals, visit us at www.InfoGrowCorp.com.?