Some things just work better when they are more closely aligned.
For those who work in either sales or marketing teams you know that life is easier when you work together.
Sales and marketing is such an essential part of any business and can play a huge part in the customers journey.
Now in 2020, with so many channels that a customer can experience your business from, like social media, email marketing or your website, it is more important than ever that both sales and marketing are aligned.
MarketingProfs found that organisations with tightly aligned sales and marketing functions experience 36% higher customer retention rates and 38% higher sales win rates.
So it makes sense to pay attention to the relationship between your sales and marketing teams. Whether you have a single employee in each or whether you are managing large teams, knowing the importance of sales and marketing alignment is essential.
How do you define sales and marketing?
It is important to notice the difference between the sales and marketing teams to help define their impact on your business.
Marketing is the process of getting your audience interested in your businesses product or service, whereas sales includes activities involved in selling that product or service to a consumer or other business.
Marketing essentially warms up a customer to help sell the product and the sales team closes the sale.
This is where you see that you cannot have one without the other. You can't sell a product without igniting interest through marketing, and marketing would not be valuable if sales are not made.
A breakdown between the two teams would not only be inefficient but it would be outright damaging for your business.
From creating a smooth lead handover process, clear communication or an effective customer communication map, there are many ways to improve the relationship between your sales and marketing.
Mapping the customer journey
To improve your sales and marketing processes, it is imperative to map out your customers journey.
Where and when are they going to interact with your business and who will they interact with. If they call and speak to a sales team member but require more marketing, they may be contacted by the marketing team before then purchasing through the sales team.
All eventualities and possibilities need to be evaluated and considered. Each communication needs to be visible to both teams to ensure the correct and current customer information is present.
In addition to this, ensuring the right messages are displayed at the right time will be crucial to help your audience get "warmer" or closer to purchasing your product or service.
Opening up this new level of detail in your communication between the two teams will help improve your customer's experiences and also create a more efficient process in your back end.
Your CRM may enable you to do this, with tools such as Hubspot or Salesforce, you can improve communication between the two marketing and sales teams.
Marketing automation may also help your business cope with the generation and management of leads or prospects to make it easier for your sales and marketing teams.
Setting up or managing marketing automation can sometimes be difficult for those with limited resources, if you have any questions about aligning your sales and marketing teams or setting up marketing automation, post them in the comments below.
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