Why Sales-Marketing Integration Trumps Alignment & 4 Steps for Marketers to Get There
Scott Vaughan
GTM Strategy and Revenue Accelerator :: Chief Market Officer : Executive for Hire :: Marketing and Sales Mentor
This is a topic that comes up every day with the marketing and sales community. I shared this long-held debate recently on the Integrate blog and more and more in public discussions, so I thought I would post on LinkedIn. I would like to hear your views.
The team at Integrate is in the midst of ramping up 2016 demand generation efforts like many organizations. While we've always been pretty well aligned with sales, this year we’re committing to moving from alignment (we have a defined set of processes, SLAs, definitions, regular pow-wows and such) to “integration.”
We have a few loosely defined ideas of what “sales-marketing integration” means, and we’re not sure if it’ll make a meaningful difference. However, it felt like we were ready to work smarter and closer to get better results for Integrate and for our demand marketing customers.
This commitment prompted some homework and discussion with other marketing and sales leaders at respected organizations. While we don’t yet have lessons to learn (we’ll share as we go – the good, the bad and the ugly), we've received many opinions that we think are meaningful enough to share with our marketing peers and community.
Rather than tell you again why it’s important, I thought I’d simply share four ways marketing can (at minimum) align with sales – and ideally develop full sales-marketing integration – in 2016. Please note this has a marketing bias, because marketing is an awesome position to transform NOW.
1. Manage marketing as an equal partner, not a patsy, to sales
You must work doggedly to establish marketing as a peer-level partner with sales – not a service provider (or worse). That means earning your credibility and your seat at the table in strategy discussions that yield plans and expectations.
Some marketing orgs report to sales while others operate in parallel. Regardless of what your org chart says, there should be spirited give and take that underscores marketing’s status as a committed, key player in driving outcomes.
We were reminded to not underestimate the challenge you will face in getting sales’ buy-in to this construct, as many sales orgs are perfectly content to use marketing as their butler.
2. Go on the hook for marketing KPIs you can meet and be confident
Taking the partnership mandate one step further, marketing must be vigilant to ensure quarterly, campaign or other demand generation goals are based on planning that yields realistic, attainable goals.
This is the opposite of sales requirements being thrown over the fence to marketing (by sales or the executive team), which it then has to execute. Too often, sales gives marketing a quota without enough upfront scrutiny of its feasibility, including whether sales is in position to act on the volume of leads being demanded.
Mutually developed goals are a modern construct that help marketing orchestrate demand and ensure both teams can deliver on customer acquisition goals. Remember: Beware the hook!
3. Be the go-to resource for customer insights that drive business revenue
Once goals are locked down, marketing should take point in sales’ efforts to engage with the customer. This goes well beyond documenting buyer personas and mapping the buyer journey into ongoing sales enablement.
Marketing should deliver timely, actionable research, product insights, competitive analyses, white papers, trial offers and more for strong customer engagement. Marketers should take on key roles, where possible, in helping advance and win key customers.
Marketing sits at the center of so much third-party and internal data – as well as customer insights – that it’s uniquely positioned to help drive greater revenue. And make sure to keep sales focused on customer experience so your brand always delivers value, making it easier to engage and create customers.
4. Apply sales-marketing integration principles to data
Lead management processes must align closely with the way your sales org handles outreach and tracks prospect/customer insights. Marketing requires full visibility into the process – status, disposition of leads, rejection of leads and so on.
This presumes sales trusts marketing enough to be transparent and share feedback – positive and negative. Integrated demand marketing includes managing the flow of data between systems so sales receives required outcomes, but is spared details on how the sausage is made. Managing that flow provides a clear understanding of what’s in the pipeline and where the chokepoints are.
Thanks to the marketing and sales leaders who provided feedback to help us move beyond sales-marketing alignment and acheive our integration effort in the coming year. We’ll share our learnings as we go. And, as always, we'd love to hear what’s working for you and your organization.
Realtor/ Member National Association of Realtors
8 年This is a great article to remind us that sales and marketing are in the same camp. Integrated programs always outperform those that are executed with only buy in from sales or marketing.
Retired
8 年Thought provoking article, Scott. S&M integration/orchestration not only trumps "alignment", but I stipulate is a primary strategic and cultural differentiation between top performing firms and their below average peers/competitors. At least for firms who sell complex solutions to "considered purchase" buyers, here are three ways Marketing can better orchestrate their efforts with Sales: 1. Deliver Sales Lead Dossiers - Certainly Marketing Qualified Leads need to meet the pre-agreed Sales criteria. But Marketing should also provide more than contact info. They should share what marketing assets/content/programs the prospect was exposed to, responded to and interacted with, including any form/survey data the prospect contributed along the way from first touch to MQL status. Marketing might also share relevant info about the prospect's firm, especially including the names and LinkedIn profiles of other executives likely involved in a buying cycle, news about relevant compelling events and triggers such as news releases, 10-K nuggets, investor videos, M&A activity, etc. 2. Talking Points - Marketing should provide continuously updated messaging, how-to videos and white-board methodologies that assist the sales rep with what they need to know, say, do and show when they have conversations and meetings with the prospect. Playbooks and experiential training, virtually delivered to through the sales rep's mobile, tablet and laptop devices should be a Marketing function/contribution that aligns with the company's sales growth strategy. 3. Links, Decks & Docs - Marketing should not just throw up assets to the Sales Portal and count on Sales reps to find and use them as appropriate, but instead should share with individual sales reps the specific industry and persona insights, solution content, playbooks and competitive battle cards relevant for specific sales opportunities. Based on an individual Lead Dossier (see #1 and #2 above), Marketing should point the sales rep to the specific assets that the sales rep can use to advance and close that specific deal. Sales is all about revenue. These are three pragmatic ways Marketing can orchestrate with Sales to be all about revenue too.
Chief Marketing Technologist talks about Marketing&Sales, Agtech, Regenerative Farming, Soil Health, Abundance
8 年While I agree with the David Hubbard approach, I think it must be preceded by a critical agreement between the parties to participate in this exercise together. What is so often lost here is an appreciation for the force that Peter Senge called elastic tension; the tendency for deviation from the "normal" to stretch like elastic until the forces driving the change cannot overcome the momentum of normalcy, and the system snaps back to status quo. Simply executing a meaningful program will not provide a breakthrough when one party or the other stopped listening long ago. The breakthrough in many cases has to come from top management insisting on a change in attitude and committing to changes in personnel if it is not achieved.
Collaborating With B2B Clients To Drive Profitable Revenue Growth | Sales, Marketing and Product Go-To-Market Strategies
8 年I strongly believe that Marketing should strive to be perceived as the revenue and profit center of the company rather than a cost center for sales support, to be a trusted partner of Sales rather than an active part of we-they blame game, and, to be perceived as the collaboration expert across the company to deliver seamless, consistent customer experience. We have a very long way to go. However, to make progress towards that goal, Marketing must demonstrate this leadership by it's actions, not by it's claims or words. Scott, here's a couple of strategies that helped me achieve Marketing-Sales strategic alignment and empowered collaboration, and hopefully they will shorten your journey. It's difficult for Marketing to demonstrate leadership by trying to enforce a 20th century view of alignment. Strategic alignment in the 21st century is much more than simply passing leads between Marketing and Sales. It's about the company (particularly, all the customer-facing functions) aligning with the new empowered buyer throughout the buyer's entire purchasing journey. It's difficult for Marketing to demonstrate partnership with the entire Sales organization when up to 80% of the leads we send do not help reps achieve their quota. Reps lose productivity when they waste time on qualifying lousy prospects versus helping prospects that intend to buy. Reps lose their jobs, literally, when quota is not achieved, while Marketing simply moves on to hopefully develop better future campaigns. That's not a win/win partnership from a Sales perspective. Shouldn't our priority as Marketing be to use our specialized expertise and technology throughout the complete buyer journey to help Sales (and their channel partners) close more deals, by increasing their productivity, by helping to shorten the buyer decision process, by supporting their Sales processes, by creating integrated Sales and Marketing strategies/ tactics and campaigns through empowered collaboration, by reducing the company's overall cost of sale through increased strategic alignment, by helping to retain and up-sell existing customers? The answer really depends on whether Marketing wants to act like a cost center or act like a revenue/ profit leader.
Marketing @ Flexera | CMO | GTM Strategy
8 年Love love love this, Scott! Great points all around.