Although the sales and marketing teams of an organisation work closely together, they are distinctly different disciplines, but functionally with a few similarities. Marketing predominantly focuses on market trends, buyer behavioural patterns, and other demographics to position the company’s future successes. On the other hand, sales teams mainly concentrate and virtually rely on instant results to increase revenue generation.
This critical aspect of aligning two interconnected disciplines is one of the biggest opportunities for improving business performance, which in turn enhances sales performance, profit margins, and growth. By positioning the two teams, they are encouraged to unite around a single revenue goal. While both are essentially required to operate their duties amicably, alignment is a decisive characteristic for the organisation to forge ahead effectively.
Nevertheless, despite the tangible benefits of aligning the two functions, often companies struggle to achieve and maintain the synchronisation of these important roles due to inherent disagreements in their job roles and goals.
As the principal function, the marketing team studies customer behaviour, competition, future trends, and buying patterns of a specific market segment related to the products or services of the organisation. With this information, they strategically plan future actions best suited to proceed. These include marketing communication that focuses on short-term tactics and branding to raise awareness among direct salesmen about the initial approach. As a key strategy, marketing also originates processes of lead generation by identifying new prospects.
In contrast, undeniably, the sales force is unique and one of the most important and extremely necessary resources in an organisation. First-hand information gathered by the sales team through direct interaction with customers is invaluable for the marketing team to formulate effective short- and long-term strategies. By coordinating closely with the marketing team, sales can provide critically vital market intelligence on competitors, ongoing customer trends, special requirements, etc., that can sharpen the company’s marketing communication efforts.
Research has revealed that companies with tightly aligned sales and marketing teams achieve faster revenue growth. For the sales and marketing alignment to be successful, the leaders of the organisation must ensure that two teams share common objectives and goals. Both teams must collectively be made responsible for revenue targets and performance considerations. Creating a shared work environment can provide more cohesion between the two teams.
Communication
Internal communication flow is an important ingredient in sales-marketing alignment. Regular and well-drafted communication between the team members through systematic meetings and integrated channels can provide effective visibility for both factions.
Both teams must have equal visions of customer-centric values to understand and meet the needs of the specific market segments. This involves creating buyer personas, mapping customer journeys, and developing content that addresses customer pain points at different stages of the sales funnel.
Shared access to information — both primary information collected by sales by interacting with customers directly and secondary information gathered through research by marketing — are equally important elements of business planning. Therefore, sharing data and insights between sales and marketing is crucial for the success of an organisation. Marketing should provide sales with data on lead behaviour, while sales should receive feedback on lead quality and conversion rates. Utilising analytics tools can help both teams make data-driven decisions.
Identifying buyers’ perspectives is one of the crucial grey areas in both marketing and sales and identifying the individual perspectives of buyers is always a struggle. By encouraging the two teams to work together, companies can remove the funnel barriers, leading to a deeper insight into buyers’ journeys. By promoting cohesion, the teams gain better access to a more realistic understanding of the prospects’ needs.
Lead generation, qualifying generated leads, and ultimate acquisition are important elements of organisational growth. Marketing should generate reasonably accurate leads and qualify such leads for the sales team members to follow and close deals with. However, in today’s context, generating leads is the responsibility of both sales and marketing teams. Hence, for lead generation to be effective and conversion to be effective, sales and marketing must work together. The teamwork of these two valuable resources is essentially vital for lead generation.
Functionally, the approaches of sales and marketing to customer interaction differ. Marketing is predominantly responsible for creating buyer personas through insights gained through research. Sales, on the other hand, communicate, most often one-on-one, with customers and understand pain points better.
In this context, marketing may have better knowledge about the specific behaviour of buyer segments and more accurate psychological profiles, while sales may have a more direct understanding of the customers in practical aspects through their closer personal contact. Therefore, organisations can derive much higher results by combining these two areas of sales and marketing.
The inter-departmental communication flow of an organisation is another key element for success, not only in terms of overall business success but also in terms of a balanced work environment. Hence, constant communication between sales and marketing paves the way to a more defined and stronger relationship between these two important areas.
Trust
With improved communication opportunities, the teams can see open lines of communication, which creates a chance to refine strategies and approaches. Open communication can also develop enhanced trust between the teams, making their combined efforts more comfortable.
Alignment improves revenue by eliminating unproductive processes in both departments. Rather than ending their contribution after creating leads and distancing themselves from the rest of the sales process, the marketing team can engage until the inquiry turns into a completed sale. Alignment may inspire them to help with following leads and offer other necessary assistance to the sales team.
Marketing team members can improve their skills in direct interactions by practically participating in actual selling situations and follow-ups. By interacting with customers firsthand, they may obtain a better sense of audience reaction, which in turn can help formulate better marketing and communication strategies.
Anyone who has been engaged in either sales or marketing knows that there is some type of rift between sales and marketing teams in many organisations. Often, on failures in performances, they point fingers at each other, and on success, each of them tends to claim ownership separately. This has been a common phenomenon since its launch. Typically, marketing complains that the sales team does not use information provided by them properly, while sales teams tend to find faults with the quality of information provided by marketing.
However, when these two teams are combined and aligned and the performance goals are mutually shared, it is difficult to place the blame on a specific team if something goes wrong, as everyone has played a part. Therefore, it can hold individuals from both teams accountable.
Amidst the current ferociously competitive, complex, and demanding consumer behaviour, the alignment of sales and marketing teams has become more than a necessity for driving business success. There is no doubt that there are clear and lucrative benefits if alignment can be practiced by facing inherent contradictions.
By addressing inconsistencies through unified goals, cohesive communication, and mutual respect, organisations can harness the full potential of their sales and marketing efforts. Together, the two teams can achieve common objectives that ultimately lead to increased revenue, enhanced customer experience, and overall performance.
