We live in the age of the customer, where buyers’ needs, preferences, and experiences shape marketing strategies more than ever before. Decision-makers no longer wish for more personalized buying experiences—they expect it. Delivering this level of personalization involves better targeting and a more solid understanding of individual buying group member needs and pain points to deliver more relevant content and messaging across the channels they use the most.
While a data-driven, full-funnel account-based marketing (ABM) strategy is the best way to identify key accounts and surround buyers with content and messaging that resonates with them, the effectiveness of this approach requires strong alignment with your sales and customer success teams. A common view of target account research, engagement activity, and key performance indicators (KPIs) allows both teams to work more collaboratively. This unified, “always-on” approach across the entire customer lifecycle guides accounts through the buying journey faster and establishes a better connection with them that leads to a stronger partnership for years to come.
Are your marketing, sales, and post-sales teams in agreement on what the buyer needs to gain consensus across the buying committee and ultimately choose you? Read on to learn how you can achieve greater success and revenue generation through better collaboration and alignment.
Why Tight Sales and Customer Success Alignment Is Crucial in ABM
Ever heard the saying that it takes a village to raise a child? The same can be said about ABM. Marketers can’t do it alone; for ABM to be truly effective, tight alignment between sales and customer success teams is essential.
As the two groups that interact with potential and existing customers the most, sales and customer success have a close pulse on the challenges buyers face daily. Your sales team provides critical insights into the specific needs and pain points of target accounts, while customer success teams offer a deep understanding of post-sale interactions and satisfaction levels. This alignment ensures that every touchpoint, from initial outreach to ongoing support, is tailored to the unique requirements of each account.
By working closely together, these teams help marketers create cohesive and compelling narratives that resonate with key stakeholders, ultimately driving higher engagement and conversion rates. Let’s take a deeper look at how sales and customer success alignment benefits your ABM strategy.
More Consistent Messaging Across the Funnel
The growing need to reach larger buying committees and overcome longer buying cycles has led more marketers to embrace unified brand-to-demand strategies to engage decision-makers before they even begin the research process. Consistency is key to this strategy; you want buyers to understand the value of your brand from day one, which allows them to be more receptive to receiving your content and outreach efforts. Marketing and sales can then focus on delivering cohesive content and messaging throughout the buying cycle, from first touch to sales demos, with customer success teams finally stepping in to deliver support though the onboarding process. This approach establishes more familiarity and awareness of your solution and helps build stronger relationships throughout the customer lifecycle. By showing consistent messaging, every team plays a part in fueling an accounts’ chances of retention.
Better Identification of Customer Expansion Opportunities
Marketers who think their job is done once a deal is closed are missing out on significant cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Data not only shows that gaining a new customer costs 5x more than retaining them, but that existing customers are 3-10x more likely to close a deal. Turns out that the same ABM approach used to gain a customer is also effective for your customer expansion strategy.
Your sales and customer success teams’ conversations with customers are the most surefire way to gain insights into which accounts would be most interested in any upselling or cross-selling initiatives. Use this information—along with their insights on specific account pain points, concerns, and goals—to craft compelling customer expansion campaigns that reinforce brand trust and drive demand.
Stronger Customer Testimonials, Case Studies, and Referrals
Social proof—which includes client testimonials, case studies, online reviews, and success stories—offers tangible third-party validation of your company’s value. Customer referrals have increasingly become paramount to closing deals. The growing number of millennial decision-makers taking key roles on buying committees is driving more brands to seek ways to express authenticity and trust. Use feedback from your sales and customer success teams to understand which customers to use for your social proof efforts and to make your company’s value proposition more relatable and convincing.
Clearer Understanding of What Customers Want
Each member of a buying committee has unique concerns and seeks solutions tailored to their specific needs. For example, the end user that will interact with your solution daily has different priorities over a senior executive or C-suite decision-maker concerned with how the investment will impact the company’s bottom line. While data plays a critical role in understanding these varying concerns, sales and customer success feedback gives you real-world insight to really bring your content and messaging to life.
Their day-to-day experience with prospects and customers helps ensure your ABM content aligns with the current topics and trends your target customers care about the most. This enables you to craft content that educates buyers about your solution, guides them through the purchasing process, and demonstrates why your offering is the best choice for achieving their goals.
Improved Performance and Measurability
Marketing, sales, and post-sales teams often find themselves at odds when it comes to campaign measurement since they all view success differently. Sales teams are typically measured on the number of new accounts, deals closed, or contract renewals. Customer success focuses on the number of tickets closed, customer onboarding progress, and customer churn. Meanwhile, marketing is usually focused on lead quantity and brand awareness. However, early alignment on strategy and goals helps ensure that both teams are working together toward a common view of success.
Instead of pitting marketing against sales and post-sales, this approach focuses on determining the most effective path to achieve your combined pipeline and revenue goals. This unified approach also breaks down silos to encourage the sharing of metrics, which helps all teams demonstrate ROI and tangible business impact.
How to Align Your Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success Teams
Now that you understand why alignment is necessary for success, it’s time to put that teamwork into action. Here’s how.
Step 1: Pick Your Alignment Advocates
Effective collaboration requires mutual respect and understanding. This begins with recognizing and appreciating the unique contributions each team brings to the table. Leadership plays a pivotal role in actively promoting a collaborative environment where diverse perspectives are valued and encouraged. Start by designating advocates from each team to meet at a regular cadence to discuss campaign progress, strategy updates, measurement, and roadblocks. Look for individuals who are open to collaboration and have a strong understanding of ABM principles. This could include sales account managers, customer success managers (CSMs), or marketing managers who have influence within their respective teams and can rally others toward alignment. Set the goal to ensure that these advocates are aligned on the overarching ABM strategy and the expected outcomes of team alignment.
Step 2: Establish Mutual Goals and Objectives
Achieving true alignment between marketing, sales, and customer success teams requires more than just regular meetings; it necessitates a shared vision with common goals and metrics. Begin by identifying ABM KPIs that reflect both individual and collective success, such as lead conversion rates, pipeline growth, revenue generation, customer lifetime value, and net promoter scores. Ensure that these goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) to help keep everyone accountable for short- and long-term success.
Once your goals are established, ensure all teams understand how their roles contribute to KPIs and, ultimately, to the broader business objectives and metrics. Have your advocates regularly review these metrics in collaborative meetings on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis to track progress and make data-driven adjustments, which promotes a unified and agile strategy that addresses both departmental and company initiatives.
Step 3: Create Collaborative Workflows and Processes
Establishing collaborative workflows and processes is essential to bridge the gaps between teams. Start by mapping out the entire customer journey from account identification to post-sale customer engagement, highlighting key interaction points where cross-departmental collaboration can make a significant impact. Use this map to define clear roles and responsibilities for each team at different stages of the journey, ensuring that everyone understands their contribution to the overall strategy. Develop standardized procedures for information sharing and task handoffs to avoid miscommunication and ensure consistency. For instance, create detailed documentation for lead handovers from marketing to sales. Similarly, establish protocols for transitioning new customers from sales to customer success. These standardized processes should be regularly reviewed and updated based on team feedback and evolving business needs.
Implementing shared dashboards, project management platforms, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and communication apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams can greatly enhance coordination and efficiency. These tools provide a centralized repository for information, making it easier for teams to access relevant data, track progress, and collaborate on initiatives. For instance, a shared CRM system allows marketing, sales, and customer success teams to view and update customer information in real time, ensuring consistency and accuracy across interactions. Additionally, using project management tools can streamline workflows by enabling teams to assign tasks, set deadlines, and monitor the status of ongoing projects. Integrating these collaborative tools into daily operations not only boosts productivity, but also fosters a culture of transparency and accountability. With this type of culture, everyone stays on track to ensure customers and leaders across the business have what they need as quickly as possible, which fuels proactive insights that impact business strategy.
Step 4: Implement Feedback Loops for Continuous Improvement
Carving out time to regularly review and optimize your combined strategy is a game-changer for fostering continuous improvement within your organization. These loops ensure that marketing, sales, and customer success teams are consistently refining their strategies based on real-world data and insights.
Start by scheduling regular meetings or checkpoints with all team advocates to review ABM performance metrics and KPIs. Use this time to analyze data and insights to identify areas of improvement, trends, and opportunities for optimization. Consider implementing joint brainstorming sessions and cross-functional project teams to tackle complex challenges and drive innovation. It’s important to create a culture that views feedback as a positive and constructive mechanism rather than a critique. Highlight success stories where feedback led to significant improvements or innovation. This reinforces the value of continuous improvement and encourages ongoing participation from all team members.
You should also use your collaborative platform and CRM to track and manage feedback in real time. These systems store valuable information, and with advancements in artificial intelligence capabilities, it’s easier to analyze trends and identify recurring issues without the potential for human error. By integrating these tools into daily operations, teams can promptly address concerns and make informed adjustments to their strategies.
Another crucial aspect of successful feedback loops is the follow-up. Ensure that all feedback received is acknowledged and acted upon. Implement a system where feedback is reviewed, and actionable insights are extracted. Assign specific team members to take ownership of implementing changes based on the feedback, and regularly update the entire team on the progress and outcomes.
There’s No Marketing in Team
No man is an island. Just as people need the help from others around them to survive, marketers need to work collaboratively with their sales and customer success teams to ensure better design and execution of their ABM campaigns.
For effective collaboration between teams, it’s essential to cultivate a culture of mutual respect and understanding. This begins with recognizing and appreciating the unique contributions the marketing, sales, and customer success teams bring to the table. You’ll see more success with your ABM marketing efforts as a result of this unity and understanding of the critical role each team plays in the buyer’s journey, from brand awareness to successful sale to onboarding and retention. Ultimately, the synergy achieved through tight interdepartmental collaboration not only boosts revenue but also elevates the overall customer experience, paving the way for sustained success.
Looking for a better path toward alignment between your teams? With a holistic view of your unified ABM strategy and efforts, the centralized ML Platform is the premier solution for modern marketers to power their growth, foster stronger team unity, and drive higher conversions. Easily and quickly connect your CRM and marketing automation platform (MAP) to the ML Platform for account-level insights you can use to validate campaign influence around metrics like opportunity volume, deal value, and sales cycle velocity. Accelerate every stage of the buying journey with the only ABM activation platform that combines three sources of intent signals, four leading media channels, and ROI metrics to drive more quality conversions.
Ready for better collaboration between your marketing, sales, and post-sales teams? Request a demo to learn how we can help.
