Are you a part of the “Smarketing” movement?

It is time to activate your silent communication channels and actively engage your sales and marketing teams with each other. 

Sales and marketing alignment is crucial for businesses now more than ever. With mounting tensions in lieu of the pandemic, recession, degrading social landscape, and increasing competition, it has now become imperative for businesses to find a way to harmoniously sync both the departments. Misalignment in sales and marketing has been costing organizations a lot in terms of potential revenue generation and underutilization of resources. This misalignment can further cause rifts and resistance amongst the personnel and cause a decrease in prospective leads, inefficient marketing campaigns, and sales slips. 

The industrial revolution has already begun, organizations are turning to digital means to satisfy their sales and marketing needs. The salesforce or every organization is being subjected to increased difficulties in terms of hitting the right audience and marketing teams are struggling with the ever-evolving marketing funnel. Marketing funnels have an increased number of focal points which if utilized per the efforts of sales teams can lead to better conversion rates. There is an increasing shift between sales-led funnels to marketing-driven funnels which are based on the data profile of sales teams. This is why there is a strict need to align your sales and marketing teams.

Let’s take a look at some of the other benefits of aligning sales and marketing teams-

Effective consumer personas

An organization’s salesforce communicated with customers and potential customers. They are ones who are directly in contact with the consumer and are constantly responding to the questions posed by them in terms of services or products. They are generating feedback and are aware of the points of satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the consumer. Whereas the marketing team is the one devising, implementing, and testing the strategies for these consumers. 

Now, if both the verticals are operating independently, there is a greater risk of them developing different or varied consumer personas which can result in inefficiency at all possible levels. The marketing will only be looking at the bigger part of the picture and base their decisions and metrics on that and the sales team will not be able to generate better leads if the marketing team is not being able to reach the targeted audience and is not forming strategies in compliance with the target market’s preferences. 

However, if the teams are aligned, they will communicate the typical characteristics of their ideal consumers which will help them build a candidate persona. This way the sales and marketing teams will be able to direct their strategies and communication towards a singular goal, achieving greater efficiency and productivity. According to a study by Marketing Profs, it was stated that organizations with aligned sales and marketing divisions generated 38% higher sales win rates and experienced a 36% higher customer retention rate.

Enhanced consumer journey

There can be nothing more damaging than over or under communication from an organization with its consumers. Over-communication is often a result of misalignment between the sales and marketing teams and can cause irritation of lack of trust in the customers, especially if they have shared valuable information with you. If the teams are misaligned they will both try to target a potential customer in their own ways and do it simultaneously. This can result in a confused customer or might give away the feeling of lack of coordination within the organization. 

If the sales and marketing teams are aligned, they will be able to better take up consumers on their journey through your services. Devising a method to engage with prospective consumers is one of the prime benefits of alignment between sales and marketing teams. They are both uniquely equipped in handling the matters at hand and can really take the customer through a positive and engaging journey. It is also critical to note that misalignment can also lead to wastage of organizational resources and time of the employees. It can also lead to the start of a blame game within the departments leading to further resistance.

Source: Unsplash

Now, if you are wondering how to cultivate this internal alignment in your organization, we have some tips in store for you- 

Regular interaction

In order to successfully align your sales and marketing teams the first step is to make them interact with each other. Having them collaborate on agendas and projects is how you can get started. This way the employees will be able to humanize the roles and expand it to incorporate the scope of alignment. If you have a larger sales workforce and comparatively smaller marketing workforce, you can simply reinforce the communication by streamlining the process based on collaborative projects. 

Focus on listening

It is important to pay attention to the needs of your employees and understand their requirements and preferences. You simply cannot expect them to incorporate major communication streams in their operations, you have to be patient with both the teams and have them express their concerns openly. You can then focus on fixing the said problems and march towards better alignment.  

Facilitating training sessions

Training sessions come as a natural progression on the road to aligning your sales and marketing teams. Once the teams are familiar with the core functions and operations of each other, it is imperative they spend time together to better understand each other’s perspectives. And, the best way to do this is by hosting training sessions focused on teamwork and collaboration. They can also be focused on the latest tech in the segment or an educational seminar on the effectiveness of such strategies. 

Sharing of resources

The sharing of resources is of the utmost importance when it comes to driving out results from the alignment. If the sales team is not sharing customer feedback and analysis with the marketing team they will not be able to build better strategies and if the marketing team does not share relevant data with the sales team, the sales team will not be able to effectively convert leads. 

Consensus goals

The alignment we talk about is not just between teams and the employees, it works on the organizational level and requires alignment in their goals as well. It is imperative that the goals are formulated per the operations of both the teams and it is also crucial to discuss the strategies that are in line with the goals. Both the teams must engage in healthy discussion and outline responsibilities for their initiatives. 

Identifying points of differentiation 

Another important and often overlooked factor is identifying the key points of differentiation between your organization and that of your competitors and making sure both your teams understand this. This is a crucial factor because the content and marketing communication initiatives undertaken by your marketing team should always highlight your unique point of difference and as for the salesforce, it is a necessity because they are the ones who are communicating with the customers directly and it is essential they are made aware of the unique proposition they have to offer. 

The task of aligning your sales and marketing team may seem like a daunting task but is exactly what you need to stay afloat in the depressed economy. The efficiency of your organization will increase multifold which will in turn give your revenue generation a boost.