Although sales and marketing are always pointing fingers, studies now show that marketing teams aren’t producing enough qualified leads for sales. Continuing to ignore alignment between your sales and marketing could greatly inhibit your ability to grow as a business. Marketing now plays a massive role in new customer acquisition and must work hand in hand with sales to get the most value out of your leads. A lack of communication or disorganization of leads could affect the way a buyer sees your business. By Aligning your Sales and Marketing, you can ensure your buyer is getting a great experience while generating revenue.
How Marketing Helps Sales Close More leads
Pushy sales tactics no longer work. With the customer being more informed than ever before, the buyer has the upper hand in most sales conversations. In order for Marketing to help Sales they need to understand the buyer doesn’t just wake up and decide to make a purchase without informing themselves, looking over all the options, and making a decision. These 3 steps or stages can be described as the buyer's journey.
In stage 1 of the buyer's journey, the awareness stage, the buyer is aware they have a problem and is interested in information to fix the issue.
Stage 2 is the consideration stage. The buyer has conducted research, defined their problem, and is considering options to solve it.
Finally, stage 3 is the decision stage. This stage highlights the decision-making process the buyer uses in order to choose an administrator to provide a solution.
Well, that’s all great Thomas. Why is this important? This is vital information for a sales rep, it could mean landing or losing a deal. For example, you wouldn’t want your Sales team trying to provide information to a lead who is in the decision-making stage. The buyer already knows the information they need, drawing them further away and eliminating your business from being in discussion to provide the solution. In an aligned organization, Marketing's job is to gain knowledge about the information needed at each stage of the buyer’s journey. They can then pass this knowledge and specific needs to the sales team for better insight to close a sale.
How Sales Can Close More Leads
It often happens that unqualified leads come from marketing to sales. The sales team’s frustration is understood, but in order to see the change they need to communicate. Sales can help marketing close more leads by sharing which leads are qualified and why. By aligning Sales and Marketing and showing what's working and what isn't, you can improve sales outcomes. For example, if a qualified lead is passed along through a sign-up form but never made it past the first stage of the sales process, the sales team could notify marketing that the lead was unqualified. Then both teams could discuss which forms produce qualified leads and focus on sending more leads in that direction. By notifying marketing, your team can focus more on what is working rather than what isn’t.
Aligning your sales and marketing could be the key to success in trying to grow your business. At the end of the day you are all on the same team, so communicate like it!
