Joined Up Marketing - Why Is It Important For Generating More Sales

Customers are your most valuable resource.

So, what happens when they visit your website and are treated like everyone else, despite getting personal, meaningful communications from you?

They stop feeling valuable.

Consistent marketing means delivering the same message across all channels. A joined up marketing approach involves the marketing team pushing the accelerator pedal while your sales team steers.

You both know what you’re doing, and you’re working together to achieve company goals faster than ever before.

It’s important to understand the differences between marketing and sales, because they have different roles in your organisation.

What is the difference between Marketing and Sales?

A B2B marketer’s job is to generate leads and enquiries so the sales team can convert those leads and enquiries into revenue.

The two roles require very different skills.

A telemarketer whose job it is to make appointments needs to be able to hear “no” 100 times in a row. When an appointment arises, they must have the presence of mind and speed of response to take advantage of it.

Sales reps and sales managers are often very different.

During an appointment, there is a lot of pressure on them to meet sales targets and persuade the customer. 

Rarely do sales representatives and marketers understand each other’s roles. Because of misunderstandings many reps become frustrated and complain about the quality of leads or enquiries.

How can integration help your business to grow?

One of the most significant factors hindering brand growth is conflict between sales and marketing teams.

There is no perfect way to combine the efforts of two teams with different aims and priorities.

However, combining B2B marketing and sales efforts delivers the following:

• an increase in the number and quality of leads,
• overall company efficiency, and
• better growth prospects.

This process is called “sales marketing alignment” and the benefits are:

• it increases sales,
• relationship-building with clients, and
• it reduces wasted marketing expenditures.

According to HubSpot Research, 72% of companies with fewer than 50 new opportunities per month failed to reach their revenue targets. This is 57% less than those who generated 51 to 100 opportunities per month. Is your marketing team delivering the wrong type of lead to sales?

There is more to it than that, but it’s not far from the truth.

Sales and marketing team alignment

Sales teams deal with customers at the point of sale, so they know the typical customer, their hopes, and their pain points better than marketing teams.

But they are not encouraged to share this with the marketing department. The marketing team needs to know which customers offer the best ROI. Without it, they may not be targeting the most profitable customers.

In this case, sales and marketing activity is misaligned. Because neither understands the other’s needs, their work is inefficient. Marketing and sales teams can be more efficient by developing systems of marketing communication that help them understand their target client better

Developing a lead generation funnel

Lead generation focuses on attracting/engaging people or companies that may be interested in your products or services (immediately or later).

By using a “lead generation funnel”, there are a number of ways to get people’s attention, including:

• telemarketing,
• blog posts,
• email marketing,
• product discounts, and
• appearances at events.

The lead generation funnel focuses on harvesting, prospecting, and qualifying leads. Generally, the marketing team knows the type of customer they’re targeting, but sales data can be used to refine and better target their efforts.

Agree on a joined up marketing strategy

Communication between sales and marketing improves conversion rates and customer retention.

Conversion rate

In cases where sales and marketing haven’t exchanged prospect or customer data, sales staff could struggle to convert some potential customers. 

Conversely, if the sales team does not tell the marketing team in enough detail about the type of customers they want to work with, the marketing team may deliver wrong leads.

Benefits of joined up marketing and sales

The alignment of marketing and sales increases revenue generation as marketing targets the best customers for sales to convert.

What about more complex sales? 

When targeting businesses, you need to know who is involved in the buying decision. When a target is engaged, the sales team can give the marketing team pointers on individual targets within the company.

According to LinkedIn , 70% of their respondents said sales and marketing collaboration improves the buying experience.

More Than Words Note: Read some examples of how a joined up marketing approach can work and the results generated for a typing & translation company, training company and reading app company.

Alignment problems with complex sales

In modern business, there are many complexities involved in configuring your alignment strategy. Businesses are now operating in multiple countries, each with their own language and corporate culture.

So, when targeting these types of companies, you need to know both the internal structure and how those structures interact across countries. This complicates the task of creating content and targeting outbound marketing efforts.

It may be necessary to adjust certain types of content for different types of decision-makers and countries. Your sales team needs to be more proactive in identifying any potential customer and feeding audience information through name-by-name.

More Than Words Note: Did you know we have targeted business data lists of SMEs and CEOs? Contact our team for more information.