Synchronized Sales and Marketing: The New Dream Team

There is something mesmerizing about synchronized swimming, don’t you think? Some might argue its validity as an Olympic sport, but others will tell you it’s not as easy as it looks! Not only does it demand strength and aerobic endurance, but also grace and precise timing. Like most sports, this type of teamwork requires a commitment to a common goal, lots of practice, and good leadership—which coincidently can also be applied to teamwork in the workplace. In particular, aligning sales and marketing.

Out of Sync

Getting sales and marketing to work together harmoniously produces a long list of benefits, including improved productivity and increased revenue. This is especially true in B2B companies where aligning these functions can shorten lengthy sales cycles. And yet this type of alliance seems to be as rare as a swimmer without goggles. Why?

Sales and marketing generally have two different mind-sets. First, marketing projects are usually long-term, such as building brand awareness and nurturing leads, while sales tend to think short term as they work toward monthly or quarterly quotas. There may also be differing opinions on the best way to generate and qualify leads, and a strict delineation between roles. What you end up with are members of the same team operating from two different playbooks!

Change the Routine

The problem is the old model of the sales funnel is no longer relevant, and therefore the traditional functions of sales and marketing are ineffective. Today’s buyer journey is driven by the customer who is educating himself prior to making contact with suppliers. The path to conversion is less linear and more like a winding path, with a variety of influences along the way. In this new environment, marketing and sales must rely on input from each other to develop buyer personas, identify where customers are in the buying journey, and how to reach them with the most relevant content at each phase.

The first step in fostering teamwork is to develop a written sales and marketing strategy that focuses both departments on one goal—revenue growth. This plan should be developed with input from sales and marketing and, once it’s established, needs to be articulated to everyone involved. This requires coaching from the top down. Without buy-in and direction from upper management, this commitment to work together is likely to fail.

Moving from a sales-forward funnel to a customer-led journey means that both sales and marketing must think more like their customers. Marketing cannot build awareness, interest, and consideration without the input from people on the front line. Likewise, sales reps need quality data and content that solve customers’ problems to keep prospects engaged and close the deal. 

Changing the routine also involves working together to define lead generation metrics. If these metrics are defined prior to implementing a marketing automation (MA) platform, the sales process becomes more efficient, as everyone knows which leads need to be nurtured and which leads need to be sent to sales for follow-up. According to “Four Best Practices to Ensure Sales/Marketing Alignment,” when sales and marketing work together, the quality of leads improves. Specifically, one company found that leads that come from online marketing materials close about 25% of the time, while leads that come from sales, without the help of marketing, close at a rate of 1.5%.

Companies across a wide variety of industries, from manufacturing to healthcare, are reaping the rewards of sales and marketing alignment, including higher-quality leads, increased productivity, and, of course, revenue growth. With a little coaching, a commitment to a common goal, and some practice, these two key areas can perform a synchronized routine that benefits everyone involved—it’s a beautiful thing to watch.