Sales and Marketing Alignment is the Key to B2B Success

One of the biggest struggles to business success is misalignment. There is not a company on the planet that can create a cohesive sales and marketing strategy if the sales team and the marketing team are on two different pages. Sales and marketing alignment is a term that has been tossed around for years in business. It is for good reason, as there is no successful B2B organization that does not have strong alignment between these teams.

Improving your sales and marketing alignment

There are strategies to improve your sales and marketing alignment to achieve better success.

1. Create a strong flow of communication between the two teams

A new client is a new sale. This means that every lead should be followed up with a solution driven sales team, who will then convert them into paying clients. It is important to note that marketing is never solely responsible for getting leads. Marketing needs traction on social media and platforms. However, ultimately it takes a message supported by strong sales strategies to close deals.

Your marketing strategy can go viral if you have good content, with an expertly placed sales team. While most business owners would point to their marketing department as being responsible for lack of revenue growth, it is often due to the fact that they simply do not have enough qualified leads coming in the door. Not only does poor communication with the sales department result in lost revenue, but it also leaves marketing working on methods that do not prove profitable over the long run.

2. Sales and marketing alignment on goals

The importance of alignment can not be stressed enough. Whether it is your sales and marketing teams or other members of the leadership team who will be responsible for implementing the new policies, everyone needs to be working towards the same set of goals. In order to dictate exactly what these goals are, you need to clarify the differences between sales and marketing in your B2B space. Campaigns that do not focus on quantifiable results see a much higher chance of failure than those with specific KPIs. The sooner you can find which metrics you need to track for campaigns and individual encounters, the sooner you can get to your ultimate goal: closing more business using sales and marketing alignment.

Key performance indicators reflect the things that are most important to achieving a company’s goals. Therefore, sales and marketing teams should align around the same KPIs. The best KPI’s to use can be found in an article here.

3. Reinforce it through leadership

Leadership and executive teams should share this goal. They should also be reinforcing this goal throughout the company. This will improve the adoption of this attitude. Greater adoption will improve alignment.

4. Re-evaluate your existing lead channels

Lead channels are ways of reaching out to your target market and advertising your product or service in such a way as to generate initial interest. These sources include e-mail campaigns, SEO optimization for B2B sites and webinars. Some lead channels may have low conversion rates. This does not necessarily mean that they are not effective. It does mean that you have got to try more than one in order to land the sale. For example, if your e-mail campaigns consistently see low open rates and clicks on links, then you should stop it. You might also want consider ways of increasing consumer interest by incorporating useful resources into your content mix. If you’re struggling to find leads, you can use platforms like Triggr to help.