Let’s Talk Sales And Marketing: Cruisin’ Communication [PART II]

So your sales and marketing teams aren’t speaking the same language? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. The communication clog stopping up sales and marketing alignment is quite common. But it’s certainly not irreparable.

Get talking for smooth sailing.

Your sales and marketing teams may be working in different “chambers” on that B2B buyer vessel, but that doesn’t mean they have to speak different languages.

Your teams must be able to communicate in order to keep the sales process in poised-and-placid motion:

• Decipher the slang.
  Have sales and marketing create a list of profession-specific “babble,” and then clarify each term and phrase. Make an interactive presentation so it’s easily adaptable and accessible for everyone.
  
• Get to know each other.
  Connecting your internal teams keeps everyone on the same page. You need to walk and talk a fine line: allow for tailored communication in each department while ensuring that it’s intelligible and transparent for organization-wide collaboration.
  
• Help technology help you.
  Get a Sales Enablement Platform and the right tools in place for smooth and seamless communication – both internally and with leads, prospects and customers:
  • Internal communications: quick-and-easy chatting when times call for a swift kick in communication.
  • Feedback and Ratings: Allow sales to provide feedback and to rate the content as they try it with buyers and gauge the impact.
  • Notifications and Alerts:  Let sales reps know of the latest content and of any updates on older content.
• Open the door and let people breathe.
  Communication is most effective when it’s personal. People want to be treated and talked to like people. This means speaking directly, clearly and with respect. But using the right personalization tools and practices is also key:
  • Use the information and insights you gather to tailor communication, grouping individuals and businesses with similar pains so you’re able to reach out to them more seamlessly with the right information and appropriate tone.
  • Give your customers, prospects and internal teams access to a library of information, resources and collaboration tools specifically tailored to communicate their needs, pains, questions and solutions.
  • Provide complete visibility of all engagement with powerful sales analytics that tell you what’s been viewed, downloaded, reported on and shared – by whom, to whom and when.
• Make alignment a must.
  Sales and marketing alignment not only improves internal communication, knowledge and resource sharing, but also creates a more effective conversion cycle and sales process.
  • Your marketing department must communicate the marketing plan and timeline to the sales team to allow for precision targeting, accurate tracking, timely support and smooth transitions.
  • With knowledge of the marketing process, sales reps are better equipped to monitor results and keep marketing in the loop. With better insight into what’s working and what’s not, marketing is able to produce better leads and content for sales.
  • Open communication between the two teams allows for actionable discussions on process improvement and tactic effectiveness, updates on pains and solutions, critical customer behavior shifts and strategies to seize those rare market opportunities for innovation.
  • Your sales team has the insight into your customers’ needs and why they came to you. Communicating this information enables the marketing department to optimize its messaging, effectively converting questioning prospects and hesitant leads into delighted clients and customers.
  • Marketing must not keep the information to themselves, either, but rather open up all marketing content and messaging to the sales team. This way, reps are able to seamlessly and autonomously integrate the right materials into their sales presentations for consistent and cogent brand representation.

Optimized communication between sales and marketing culminates in a more efficient sales process, both inside and out: high internal morale and consistent external communication that gets your teams fusing and cruising together … and converting with unified force.

Sales and marketing alignment not working out? Cloudy communication might be the clog in your machine. Fill out the form below to see how the right Sales Enablement Platform gets your team speaking the same language: the discourse of sales success.