You may have learned a little about what sales enablement is and found out that it is quite...
Some things are just meant to be together. Peanut butter and jam. Ross and Rachel. Alcohol and bad decisions. Believe it or not, sales and marketing work a lot better when working closely as opposed to independently. One needs the other to succeed and overall, your business benefits greatly when both teams are aligned and working on the same page.
1. Better Qualified Leads
Your marketing and sales teams wasting their energy, time and leads on unqualified leads is never going to end well. Marketing will blame sales for not using the right materials or approaching poor leads too quickly, while sales will be claiming that the marketing content isn’t good enough in the first place.
When your sales and marketing teams are aligned and in regular communication, information can be flown freely from department to department. Your sales team can tell the marketing team what is and isn’t working so that the marketers can adjust strategies based on what they’ve been told.
If both teams also implement the lead scoring method - with software that allows them to do it - it means they can both focus on only targeting the best-qualified leads and not wasting time on the bad ones.
2. Better Engagement and Stronger Relationships
The more both teams communicate, the stronger their work and personal relationships will become so they’ll eventually learn to trust each other. Rather than focusing on separate activities, implementing one shared vision and goal means they can rely on each other to hit their targets.
Working together means campaigns can be more impactful, leads can be handled a lot better and potential buyers are more impressed. It shows that sales and marketing actually work a lot better when they’re together and not entirely focusing on their own specific goals.
3. Accurate Buyer Personas
Sales and marketing teams are responsible for attracting, nurturing, delighting and closing deals in inbound marketing. That means both teams need to be on the same page for added success. Teams that aren’t on the same page and don’t communicate effectively find that the buyer personas don’t match up to the audience they’re targeting.
A huge benefit of sales and marketing working together means that marketing can help generate content that will capture the audience the sales team are chasing. By understanding customers better and having accurate buyer personas, both sales and marketing will have shared ownership and can help deliver a better and smoother buying experience.
4. Better and Clearer Feedback
By having constant communication between sales and marketing, unifying them means a strong relationship is established. This can then lead to open lines of communication which creates a better opportunity to effectively refine strategies down the line.
By having that communication and trust between both means, they’ll both be more comfortable when asking the other team to make adjustments. For example, it could be the sales team asking the marketing team to adjust the criteria for quality leads.
By having clear and better feedback channels between sales and marketing, both teams become more receptive, they’ll focus on their shared goals. And most importantly, those Christmas parties won’t be awkward because they’ll actually begin to like each other.
5. Stay Ahead of the Competition
A lot of marketing teams take time out to analyse what the competition is doing, from website changes to blog posts so they know what the trends are and where they stand in comparison.
By working together, your marketing team can keep your sales team informed of the tactics being used and the positioning of the competition. This allows your sales team to properly address why your products or services are far superior to the competition when they speak to prospects.
6. Increased Revenue
HubSpot has reported that misalignment between both sales and marketing teams costs a staggering $1 trillion a year. That’s primarily down to 79 percent of leads never converting into sales because of a lack of nurturing. Of the leads that do get passed to sales teams, though, 73 percent of them are never contacted.
At the same time, HubSpot has also found that organisations with excellent sales and marketing alignment close 38 percent more deals and achieve 27 percent faster three-year profit growth. They also achieve 208 percent higher revenue than organisations with disconnected marketing and sales teams.
7. Better Marketing Materials
Your sales team will receive a lot of the same questions over and over again from prospects right through to customers. When your sales team communicates this to your marketing team, it gives them a chance to actually create valuable content to inform the target audience.
This can be anything from blog posts to an eBook. Your sales team can then use these impactful marketing materials to save a lot of time while prospects will use them to make better decisions.
Tools, Processes and Ideas to Get it Done
Aligning sales and marketing is the first step toward implementing sales enablement. However, a hurdle you might face is how to actually get there. Check out the tips below on what can help get the process started.
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HubSpot Sales Automation software.
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Lead scoring.
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Get sales involved in campaign planning.
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Build a sense of connection between both teams.
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Encourage communication.
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Set mutually agreed goals.
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Implement a Service Level Agreement (SLA).
The first step is to actually integrate sales and marketing software. Integrating sales enablement software from HubSpot doesn’t overwhelm your teams or hurt productivity. Instead, sales enablement software from HubSpot helps sales teams to make the most of the latest sales technology and embrace inbound sales.
When you’ve implemented the tactics, tools and processes above, your marketing and sales teams are on their way to succeeding. Companies tend to grow quicker, your sales team will be more efficient at closing deals while companies with aligned teams also enjoy a 36 percent increase in higher customer retention rates.
The Drawbacks of Sales and Marketing Misalignment
We’ve already mentioned the costs that HubSpot revealed above - costing organisations $1 trillion when sales and marketing teams don't work in tandem, but it can still lead to further negatives.
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Unable to find quality leads.
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Unable to convert leads.
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Misaligned goals and vision.
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Quality of content can drop.
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Further tension between both teams.
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No visibility into what’s resonating with prospects.
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Not knowing if outdated or off-brand content is being shared with prospects.
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Being forced to use a one-size-fits-all approach which can lead to inefficiencies.
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Not knowing how successful marketing content actually is.
When you have your sales and marketing teams aligned, you’ll see just how much more efficient the entire process is - and a lot smoother. Although, these benefits can only come into play once your sales and marketing teams are aligned as well as other factors that make up the sales enablement process.
Find Out How to Close More Leads With Our Sales Enablement Guide
Great, now you know the benefits you can enjoy when your sales and marketing teams are aligned. However, if you want the sales enablement process to run smoothly all the time, there’s a lot more to consider when it comes to the tools and techniques to help your sales team close more leads and successfully engage buyers.
We’ve created a detailed sales enablement eBook that will answer all of your questions. From actionable tips on how to align both teams, increase sales productivity, sales trigger events and so much more - we’ve got you covered.
