Sales And Marketing Alignment: The Scars And Stitches

There’s a lot of talk about the benefits of sales and marketing alignment, but just like the whole “sales enablement” concept, most of the talk becomes pretty abstract, pretty quickly. Sure, it may have your marketing and sales people starting to like each other more, but so might a few company happy hours. So what’s the big deal about alignment? Let’s find out.

Putting facts and figures to sales and marketing fragmentation.

The Lackluster Leads

• 79% of marketing leads never convert to sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance. (MarketingSherpa)
• 61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to sales; however, only 27% of those leads will be qualified. (MarketingSherpa)
• Only 25% of leads are legitimate and should advance to sales. (Gleanster Research)

The Colorless Content

• 70% of content created by B2B marketing teams is never used by sales. (SiriusDecisions)
• 40% of a sales rep’s time is spent creating presentations, customizing messaging and preparing for pitches (CMO Council)

The Scarring Costs

• Resources misused: producing sales and marketing content that’s never used and pushing leads who aren’t right for your business or ready to buy.
• Opportunities abused: sales reps creating content and designing brochures or trying to get leads on their own instead of engaging with prospects and closing sales.
• Brand bruised: reps creating content without marketing support, and marketing trying to furnish materials and leads without sales input, leading to brand damage and message dilution.

An unaligned team pays the buyer no heed.

Buyer insight gets kicked to the curb when 1) sales and marketing don’t talk to each other and 2) sales and marketing aren’t equipped with the tools to seam processes and people together.

• Marketing doesn't have input from the sales reps (the people who know your buyers best!) or access to real-time data that lets them in on prospect engagement with your company’s content and offers.
• Sales doesn’t keep marketing in the loop when it comes to interactions with prospects or movements in the sales pipeline.

It’s impossible for these unaligned, blind-and-blundering efforts to culminate in the exceptional, personalized experience that today’s B2B buyer expects and demands.

An unaligned team makes people want to scream.

It’s not just the buyer who gets the brunt of fragmented sales and marketing. When teams work in silos and communication’s on mute, the workplace becomes a wasteland of frustration and stagnation.

• Marketing isn’t in tune with what the sales team really needs, so it ends up passing off barely qualified or unsuitable leads.
• Marketing isn’t in tune with what buyers really want, so it ends up sending off-base content to prospects or generating sales materials that reps find irrelevant for a certain buyer persona or specific stage in the sales process.
• Sales reps spend too much time on leads that aren’t even ready to purchase. And although these leads may be ready down the line, sales doesn’t have the lead nurturing tools to keep those dormant leads alive.

SALES is frustrated by unappealing leads, unusable marketing content and time squeezed from selling.

MARKETING is frustrated by blinders to buyer insight, lack of actionable feedback and the endless content crunch.

These are serious scars on your buyers’ time, your company’s bottom line and your people’s peace of mind. Luckily, a little alignment goes a long way.

An aligned team is stitched together at the seams.

MARKETING gets in on the action, and SALES gets better traction.
With more input from sales reps, marketing is able to produce the precision-targeted content it really needs and improve the quality of leads.

MARKETING gets a break, and SALES gets a power boost.
With easy, on-demand information creation, there’s less content-churning to burn out your marketing department, and more autonomous power for reps to build their own material: from hyper-personalized sales presentations and HTML emails to social media fan pages and personal websites.

SALES AND MARKETING are no longer apples and oranges.
A seamless, closed-loop marketing and sales process bridges the gap between lead creation, nurturing and follow-up for commanding, comprehensive lead management.

SALES AND MARKETING see together for more textured awareness.
Real-time prospect insight – input from both engagement analytics and sales reps who know their buyers best – helps marketing focus efforts and resources on the most qualified prospects and the best-performing content.

BUYERS get the experience they need to get on board with you.
The marketing department finally gains qualitative, rep-driven insight into prospects and quantitative, real-time analytics on how they are responding to content. Sales reps finally get the cogent, relevant material they need and aren’t wasting time and effort on unqualified leads. This opens up opportunities for both teams to truly blow buyers away with remarkable marketing content and killer sales presentations – distinguishing your company as an influential thought leader and undeniable power player in your market.

YOUR TEAM works together and wins together.
This sales and marketing alignment paves the freeway to marketing ROI and sales success that keep competition in the rear-view mirror. And for companies who implement alignment seriously into their long-term strategy, those “objects” in the mirror aren’t closer than they appear.

An aligned team is a well-oiled machine.

With sales and marketing alignment, your team gets a holistic, singular and real-time view of leads and prospects as they move through the sales pipeline. Marketing is able to provide on-point content and materials that sales wants to use. Sales is able to leverage devoted marketing support to help create powerful lead nurturing campaigns (for both new and dormant leads) as well as compelling conversations that keep customers and clients delighted long after the sale is closed.

It’s only possible with the right sales and marketing stitching: an all-inclusive sales enablement platform to seam people and processes together.

Sales and marketing alignment is no longer the icing on the cake; it’s the meat and potatoes of sales success. Fill out the form below to see how sales enablement software seams your team together for collaborative workflows and sustainable earnings.