Although sales and marketing are often working toward a common goal (increased sales), in many organizations they are not necessarily partnering together to achieve these results. On one hand marketing is working hard to define the company’s core messaging and increase demand generation, while on the other hand sales is striving to close deals. Though these initiatives are well intentioned, they are not always as effective as they could be. So, how can companies get the results they are looking for? According to Demand Metric 66% of companies reporting complete alignment between sales and marketing achieved their revenue goals compared with 41% who reported no alignment.
Whose job is it to align sales and marketing anyway?
Sales managers agree that the number one reason for not hitting their quota is the inability of reps to articulate value. Enter sales enablement. But, whose job is it? According to Sirius Decisions, sales enablement’s mission, where it reports, how it is funded and what it is responsible for varies from company to company. Sometimes it even shifts as the program evolves depending on which department has the most resources. That said, we’re noticing a trend of marketing stepping up to fill the role. While it’s not the case for every organization, marketing is often invested in seeing the leads they fought so hard to bring in actually close and they tend to have more flexible budgets to absorb new initiatives like this. Unfortunately, however, most marketers are not prepared or trained to do this effectively. The good news is that with a few new tools and techniques they can get up to speed quickly.
First things first: make the information easy to find
Sales reps are busy. They are in the field, making cold calls and working on RFPs. Hunting down content just slows them down. In fact, sellers waste seven hours per week looking for information and 89% of salespeople have missed opportunities because of information overload according to CSO Insights. So, marketers need to make this information easy to access, digest and retain. Ideally, it should be searchable and available on any device (smartphone, tablet, laptop or PC). Some solutions even integrate with CRMs and Marketing Automation Systems for better lead management. For example, MobilePaks integrates with Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot and Salesforce.com to bring in marketing intelligence about the prospect and recommend relevant content to support the sellers’ conversations.
Just because they can find it, doesn’t mean they’ll use it
It’s not enough to just give reps access to sales and marketing collateral, marketers also need to train them on how use it in their customer conversations to close deals. Gone are the days of massive sales playbooks and battlecards. While these tools are still valuable, marketers should break this information into short interactive bites of knowledge that are easy to digest and retain. When possible, it is also a good idea to incorporate audio and video, as well as knowledge checks, to boost engagement and help sales reps understand how to use the information when talking to customers.
Help marketing, help sales
Marketers are obsessed with analytics, but they are struggling to get visibility into what sales materials get the most use and what reps would like more of to support them during the sales process. The ability to track and support activity from lead to close is directly related to eventual success and shortened sales cycles. When sales enablement tools are implemented correctly, Marketing can capture usage data, as well as feedback, to better support reps with relevant information at the right time.
Sales and marketing alignment is a bit like a soccer match. The midfielder (marketing) runs back and forth across the pitch to set the striker (sales) up for the perfect opportunity to score (close the deal). If the two players are not in synch they may run into each other like Jermaine Jones and Alejandro Bedoya did in the USA’s World Cup 2014 match against Germany. The secret to avoiding situations like this in your organization is to remind sales and marketing that they are both working toward the same goal and then help them learn how to work together efficiently to close more deals. In addition, it is important to provide tools to help marketing create more effective sales support that reps can access when and where they need it to create conversions.
Chanin Balance is CEO of MobilePaks, a cloud-based marketing and sales enablement tool.
