When your sales and marketing teams are in alignment, there are a number of critical advantages that help you meet business goals more effectively and efficiently. Unfortunately, data silos often exist between sales and marketing that make collaboration difficult, if not impossible. The highest-performing organizations identify and eliminate those silos to drive business success. Here are four ways you can foster cooperation and communication between sales and marketing.
Eyes on the Prize: Revenue
Even if your company’s comprehensive sales and marketing goals are only generally in alignment, there is one invariable goal the departments share: to drive revenue. Sales and marketing teams should be reminded that they are both working toward that same goal and actively collaborate to meet it. Put a service-level agreement (SLA) in place between the two departments in which marketing commits to sourcing a certain number of leads per month, and sales commits to contacting those leads within a certain time frame. Then, evolve that SLA under a shared revenue goal and create a feedback loop on how to improve lead generation through various marketing channels and how and when sales engages with those leads.
Create Common Goals
A great way to foster collaboration between sales and marketing is to set goals around common KPIs that ladder up to driving revenue. For example, you may opt to focus on pipeline generation, improving lead conversion rates, fostering a revenue-centric perspective that prioritizes booking contributions, spending more time marketing and selling to target buyers or boosting average sale values. Task your sales and marketing teams with creating and contributing to a mutual strategy to meet a named goal. You can even throw some healthy competition into the mix by placing the larger groups into smaller integrated teams or pairing an individual from marketing with an individual from sales to target specific audiences for lead or demand generation.
Make Time for Show & Tell and Q&A
Your sales and marketing teams likely have two very different views of your customers. While the marketing team may be focused on behavior and metrics like clicks, engagement and leads, chances are your sales team has a much more practical view of what it takes to carry prospects from qualification to opportunity to sale. The sales team may also have a more up-to-date pulse on changes in customer needs, like new features or options customers may want. This knowledge is extremely beneficial to informing top-of-funnel marketing campaigns.
To facilitate information sharing between sales and marketing, open pathways to communicate with one another. Host a biweekly download (virtual or in person) where the teams have an open forum to share updates, challenges and successes. Set aside time for weekly pitch practice or campaign-building sessions where teams can share their ideas to sharpen a final product. Managers and department leads should always encourage effective collaboration when they see it to model examples of cooperation and motivate team members to use them as a guide.
Connect Teams in Community Channels
Teams often become isolated when they lack the right reason or communication channels to connect with one another. Their job duties may not overlap directly on a daily basis, which means they may not see a need to stay in touch with one another as often as they do with members of their own departments. However, sales and marketing both house relevant information that can prove essential to one another’s daily tasks and customer success.
Consider creating an online group channel that includes members of sales and marketing and instruct members to use it to share ideas. Sales reps can quickly drop customer feedback that can inform marketing campaigns, and marketers can communicate back to sales which resources are performing well or are newly available. Encourage them to use those options on a regular basis so that they can collaborate more effectively, sharing information in a way that makes it easier for them to build on each other’s insights.
Breaking down data silos and establishing better overall alignment between your sales and marketing teams can have an incredible impact on your business. By ensuring that your marketing and sales departments have a shared vision, open lines of communication and agreement to work together to best connect with target buyers, businesses can achieve a better bottom line.
