Do You Speak Marketing or Sales?

Here is an interesting exercise.?When you develop your next demand gen campaign, list your expectations.?Notice the word I am using here is expectations.?Expectations are different from goals.?Expectations are different from needs or wants or even dream scenarios.?Why the exercise??Because expectations can vary greatly and expectations between sales and marketing are a perfect example of this.?Getting on the same page in terms of campaign expectations is critical when defining success.?Why??But it should be done together, a collaboration between sales and marketing.?Until then, expectations can get lost in translation depending on whether or not you speak marketing or sales. I have listed here some examples involving specific demand gen situations and how these have translated into very different expectations from both sales and marketing:

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1. Guaranteed Sales Ready Leads.?What is a sales ready lead?

You have agreed to deliver a campaign that guarantees sales ready leads.?These leads are far more qualified than one touch syndication leads.?These prospects have had multiple engagements with your content, answered specific questions, have a project in play and said yes to receive a call from sales.?Marketing expects that these prospects are actively participating in the buyers journey or in already in buy mode building a shortlist.

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Sales expects that this is someone that will be ready to buy…from them (if they were, that’s maybe an appointment setting program lead, but I digress).?The expectation is clearly different but not communicated well.?This situation actually came up recently. In this specific program 18 out of 200 leads turned into pipeline.?A 600% return on investment.?Staggering success.?Yet at first, sales leadership was disappointed.?They expected 90% of these leads to turn into sales.?This figure was based on nothing, no research, no history, no marketing metrics at all, just a belief that sales leadership just came up with.?What was interesting was when I asked the sales leader if 90% of his team’s calls amounted to deals, he easily backtracked.?Always be sure to communicate clear expectations before the program to avoid any potential issues or confusion.

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2. Sales Will Follow-Up on the Leads.?What Does Following Up on a Lead Really Mean??

Marketing usually nurtures top of funnel leads.?A qualified lead, a prospect who has had multiple engagements with the vendor and shown need, will usually be followed up directly, and hopefully immediately, by sales.?Marketing expects sales to follow an aggressive cadence of multiple phone and email follow up.?But does sales already have its own cadence and follow up process in place??Most often, unless these expectations and specifically what frequency and vehicles and messaging is being used for the program is defined, follow-up cadence is already predetermined by a set process.?In this case, sales already had it its own cadence that they follow which is traditionally for more top of funnel leads and thus a less aggressive, nurturing flow.???

So yes, lead follow up is being done but clearly the expectation for how these leads are followed up is different.?Communicating the expectations of how treating leads specific to where they are in the buying process is critical.

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3. Success is Measured in Pipeline, No Wait, Revenue, No Wait, It’s Meetings…

It is essential to understand when planning a demand gen campaign how success is going to be measured with the stakeholders.?The answers to this vary by company, department, personnel and even timing.?An interesting thing we are seeing is a change in measurement.?Because the sales cycle, especially for large enterprise deals can take up to 12 months or more, the measurement of success is changing for some customers.?What used to be pipeline or revenue is now becoming meetings.?That is the number of meetings sales generates from the leads delivered.?In one case, we have seen this metric change, midcampaign.?In one update session with a large team, I heard 3 different answers from 3 different groups for the same program on how success was being measured on a specific campaign.?And that makes sense.?Measurement is really tailored depending on individuals, KPIs and sometimes even bonus structures.?Again, realizing these expectations ahead of time can certainly maintain alignment and peace for all parties involved.?

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As we have continued to see this “language divide”, we have worked hard to align expertise from our own team. We have experience in and speak both marketing and sales to help bridge the communication (translate) between sales and marketing participants in all of our demand gen campaigns.?This differentiator and experience eliminates a lot of miscommunication and sets the right expectations ahead of time, to avoid misunderstandings and get everyone on the same page.?That’s why we encourage having both sales and marketing represented in the program planning.?

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I hope this was a helpful piece and reminder of how, even internally, expectations even amongst teams can be very different.?Acknowledgement and awareness of this ahead of campaigns can make a big difference. Are you encountering similar situations??Have you experienced radically different expectations between sales and marketing? Feel free to DM me and let us help bridge the communication divide and help you craft demand gen programs that satisfy both sales and marketing expectations.?Thanks! John