We’re all familiar with the deep-rooted battle between sales and marketing. It goes something like this: sales blames marketing for their inability to produce quality leads, while marketers fault sales for their lack of lead management skills. In this battle, however, there is no winner, because when sales and marketing teams work individually, poor lead management results on both sides.
In fact, organizations that establish strong alignment between their sales and marketing teams achieved 20 percent annual revenue growth compared to companies with poor alignment, which experienced a 4 percent decline in revenue, according to a HubSpot report titled, “The Complete Guide to Unifying Your Sales & Marketing Efforts.”
It’s no secret that your inside sales team will close more deals when funneled high quality leads. However, in order to create an effective lead generation process, the two departments must be on the same page from the very beginning. Below are some tips to help better align sales and marketing.
- Set a common end goal: While each department has its own set of goals, it’s important to establish a common end objective. Revenue is an important metric to measure, but also focus on engagement, connections, and quality conversations. At the end of the day, the goal for both marketing and sales is to drive more success for their company.
- Define your ideal prospect: Before marketing can deliver quality leads to sales, both departments must work together to define what constitutes an ideal lead and how leads are scored. Doing so helps ensure that the marketing team is attracting the type of leads your sales team wants.
- Make lead scoring a collaborative process: A lead scoring model is very flexible; therefore it should be consistently tested to make sure that it is accurately sending over the best MQLS. However, this can only happen when there’s an open line of communication between the marketing and inside sales teams.
Sales and marketing alignment is crucial to organization success. So take off the boxing gloves, make nice, and follow the tips above. Trust me, your bottom line with thank you.
