Is there a chasm between your marketing and sales teams? While these two teams should work closely together, often there's less-than-perfect communication between marketing and sales. Here's how to bridge that gap and bring the two sides together in a productive working relationship.
Why the Tension Between Marketing and Sales?
If marketing and sales are two sides of the same coin, why would there be tension between them? Could it be that heads feels like tails isn't doing a good enough job? If leads are down or the leads just aren't following through, your sales team can get dejected and blame the marketing team for the poor performance. In turn, marketing can feel like sales doesn't understand them or has unrealistic expectations. However, this is one working relationship that has to work, no matter how sour things look. Sales happen because of your marketing strategies.
Unite your marketing and sales teams by finding common goals and a common language.
Make the Money Connection
Marketing and sales teams are united in their common goal to create more sales. The marketing team brings the leads in the door, while the sales team works to make sure that they buy. While sales teams are generally evaluated based on the revenue that they've made for the company, the same is not necessarily true for the marketing team. Connect your marketing metrics to lead numbers and show how marketing translated into sales, and you have both sides speaking the same language.
Talk About What's Working for Both Sides
Now that you have a common goal, determine what's working for both sides. Track your revenue and connect them back to specific marketing endeavors. How many customers did that email campaign bring in? Are people clicking through on guest posts and becoming long term customers? When you attach metrics to the work your marketing team is doing, the sales team can see the value of this work. This analysis also helps the marketing team pinpoint places where their marketing efforts are not bringing in enough customers to justify the effort.
Learn What Brings in the Big Sales
Whether it's a big sale or a long term client, there are some things that make your sales team very happy. Get your marketing and sales teams talking to each other about these specific goals. Through revenue analysis, determine what marketing efforts bring in these larger clients. It may be that your new ebook brings in customers who then sign up for your paid webinar program. Find those large revenue generators and see how you can replicate them or make them even bigger.
Understand Your Clients
You can also use your sales figures to give guidance to your marketing team, helping them shape who they appeal to with their next marketing campaign. You have multiple types of customers, and through revenue reporting, you can determine who is buying your products and how much they are buying. When you learn that one specific group brings in much of your income, this valuable information allows your sales team to direct your marketing team to become more focused on that particular group of individuals.
When you're working on your marketing strategy and trying to increase your sales, you need a digitally-savvy team on your side. Digital Inbound can help. Let our staff work with your to create a web presence that works for your business.
