Marketing and sales both have a common objective – maximizing leads, generating revenue through conversion, and hence helping a business grow. If they are not aligned properly together, it can be detrimental for the organization.  

 In an ideal scenario, marketing and sales will work together and generate maximum profits for the company and they will live happily ever after. Unfortunately, this ideal world doesn’t exist in the real sense. Often, there are conflicts, disagreements, and finger-pointing between these two departments.

However, there is something you can do so that the two teams can unite and raise awareness about your brand so that customers can trust it enough to collaborate with you. In this FunnL blog, we will discuss how b2b marketing and sales can work together to achieve common organizational goals.

1.Agree that both have the same goals

Both marketers and salespeople want more customers, more brand awareness, and more revenues. While their way of achieving those goals can be different, it’s better to find common ground to stay on the same page and plan an effective lead generation platform.

2.Marketing can nurture cold leads for sales

The sales team usually works on converting MQLs who have already been approached and educated by the marketing team.

But what about those leads who need more time and effort to get converted? With the help of marketing, those cold leads don’t go ignored and slip away easily to competitors. Instead, they are taken care of through specialized nurturing by the marketing team so that sales can convert them into buyers.

3.Sales can provide feedback on marketing efforts

Since marketers transfer the leads to the sales department for final conversation, it’s often difficult for them to track the efficiency of their marketing messages. With feedback from the sales department, they can rectify issues with their way of marketing. For instance, getting too many promotional emails or messages may annoy a prospect and prevent them from closing a deal. On the other hand, if the prospect likes the marketing efforts, they will be much more warmed up and open for an offer when they meet the sales team. The above-mentioned feedback provided to the marketers by the sales department can help close more leads for your business.

4.Develop buyer personas

It will make no sense if the marketers are dedicating their efforts to a set of leads about whom the salespeople have no idea. This way both the departments will end up wasting their time and effort.

So The marketing and sales teams must promote the same people and understand the same potential customers’ challenges, pain points, and objections to make a sale. Creating buyer personas ensures that both of them are on the same page and help them create more tailored strategies that target the above prospect issues and show how your company can solve them.

5.Conduct regular meetings 

“Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity.”  — Nat Turner

Conduct weekly meetings that include both marketing and sales teams to sort out any discrepancies in their process. This way they won’t blame each other and would rather share helpful prospect insights that will help in better decision making. 

Further, if there are any discrepancies between their understanding of the sales process, they can clarify among themselves. These meetings will help salespeople and marketers understand each other’s work.

6.Help & guide each other 

By educating both the teams about each other’s efforts and responsibilities and showcasing it in a way that explains the mutual benefits their efforts produce for your company, you may witness the start of a new partnership that will be fruitful for them and your organization.

Final Thoughts

If you are looking to align sales and marketing efforts towards your organization’s goals and objectives, these tips will help you to determine if your sales and marketing teams are working in the same direction.

The secret of a successful lead generation strategy is closely related to how well are the sales and marketing collaborated. At FunnL, we bring great business intelligence, sales, and business development professionals under one roof to make strategic decisions for the sales pipeline development to achieve ROI for your business. Contact Us! If you want to generate high-quality leads.