It’s the conversation every company’s leaders continue to have: How can we improve sales and marketing alignment? Companies avidly work to bridge the gap between sales and marketing by integrating their processes effectively, but they haven’t successfully closed that gap.
Why Align Sales and Marketing?
With demand for ABM programs rising, sales and marketing significantly impact one another. Companies feel the pain and know that sales and marketing alignment is a need, not a want. Even so, “one-third of marketing and sales teams don’t talk regularly.” All sales and marketing teams across the B2B landscape need to break away from the stereotype of working as two separate entities to embrace a new era of ABM.
The 5 Steps You Need for Marketing and Sales Alignment
Marketing and sales teams can work together effectively by taking a holistic approach. They must develop protocols to integrate their teams to create structure within the departments. If you’re not sure where to start, these steps will help you improve sales and marketing alignment and achieve better results than ever before.
Step 1: Align Your Goals
Develop goals and objectives that are consistent between the departments so that both sales and marketing look towards the same “North Star.” If your sales and marketing teams don’t work towards the same goals, it’s like trying to run a three-legged race to two finish lines in different directions. However, by working together to achieve the same goals and running towards the same finish line, both teams will be able to work faster and more effectively.
Step 2: Develop Consistent Processes
Create consistent processes at every point that sales and marketing intersect. You’ll especially need consistent processes for communication and content creation. Implement regular meetings between your sales and marketing teams so each department can get on the same page. Develop an agenda to discuss each department’s goals and objectives to increase awareness of each other’s current priorities and analyze results. HubSpot even suggests having an onboarding meeting with every new salesperson to share how marketing will support the sales team. This is also a great time to discuss specific content pieces that the sales team may need. Marketing should also notify sales about the progression of content in the works. Your sales team knows which content your consumers are excited about, so be sure to ask for their advice.
Step 3: Streamline Resources and Tools
Make it as easy as possible for sales and marketing to collaborate. Increasing the usability of your resources and tools will massively increase the efficiency and effectiveness of communication between the two departments. Ensure that the necessary living documents and resources are conveniently available to both departments, enabling them to communicate in real-time without needing to meet in person or getting bogged down by never-ending email and Slack threads. For example, consider developing a single shared document where the sales team can insert potential ideas for future content, and then consistently remind both sales and marketing that this document exists.
Step 4: Develop Consistent Terminology
Build consistent terminology between sales and marketing by developing guidelines for one consistent company voice. Developing consistent terminology will help align the content that marketing develops with the dialogue between sales and consumers. However, you need to move further than simply adjusting terms. Determine between both sales and marketing your ideal customer profile to center marketing strategies that align with the right target audience for your sales team.
Step 5: Team Bonding
The most effective way to speed up sales and marketing alignment is to build personal relationships between your team members. Building those relationships will help marketing and sales develop the ability to understand each other’s perspectives and forgive each other when alignment doesn’t work as perfectly as you’d like. Team bonding will strengthen your ability to work together and give your team members a chance to get to communicate outside of the traditional office setting. Bonding experiences will ultimately create organic communication between sales and marketing.
Begin Your Journey to Achieving Sales and Marketing Alignment with Madison Logic
The journey to achieving sales and marketing alignment may never be truly complete, but these steps give you the basic tools and framework to successfully align your teams. It’s time for your sales and marketing teams to run the race together (and to the same finish line).
Reach out to our sales team now to request a demo and learn more about how Madison Logic’s ABM solution gives you tools to improve your sales and marketing alignment and enables you to convert your best accounts faster.
