Studies show that a failure to align sales and marketing teams around the right processes and technologies costs B2B companies 10% or more of their total revenue per year. That’s $100 million for a billion dollar company. The case for better alignment is clear, but before significant improvements can be made, sales professionals and marketers both need to understand how their work impacts their counterparts on the other side.
Let’s break this down and first discuss a few of the ways marketing impacts sales.
Targeted marketing, driven by insights derived from good data, helps deliver high-quality leads to the sales department. When the marketing team works as it should, utilizing data and analytics to determine which leads are most promising — and nurturing the ones who still need some warming up through emails and personalized content — they are able to funnel leads who are informed, educated and prepared to make a buying decision over to the sales team. By delivering qualified leads to the sales team and developing content that assuages various purchase objections the lead might have, the marketing team is able to shorten the sales cycle, and the cost per acquisition often decreases as well.
Today, 57% of the buyer’s journey is completed before the buyer ever talks to sales. Because of this, it’s essential for marketing content to provide potential customers with the information they need before they reach a salesperson. It’s equally important for the marketing team to glean information about the lead they’re nurturing and share that information with the sales team. Using a marketing and sales automation tool like Marketo, HubSpot or Pardot allows the marketing team to gain deep insights into each individual lead. Today, we don’t need to wait until a lead comes in contact with sales to learn about their pain points, needs, and budget constraints. That information can be captured through smart digital marketing.
We’ve talked at length about how marketers need to use data and insights to prove their ROI outside of the their department, but it’s worth discussing the ways in which marketing can help the sales department boost their own ROI, as well. Today, 50% of sales time is wasted on unproductive prospecting, contributing to lost productivity that, combined with wasted marketing budget, costs companies at least $1 trillion a year. At its worst, marketing can hinder the sales department’s ability to do its job by supplying subpar leads that will only result in wasted time. At its best, marketing can optimize sales efficiency by providing qualified leads and lead intelligence that help sales close deals faster and easier than ever before.
Marketers, let us know: how are you aligning your work with the sales team, and what impact are you seeing as a result?
(Click here to expand)
