How to Get Sales and Marketing on the Same Page

Most businesses have separate marketing and sales teams. This makes sense, since marketing tends to be based more on the long-term results whereas sales tends to be based more on the short-term results. However, communication between the two is vital. More often than not, the marketing team and the sales team don’t communicate properly, which results in neither marketing nor sales being as successful as they potentially could be. The following are a few ways that you can get sales and marketing on the same page in order to improve both:

The people on your sales team deal directly with your customers. This means that they have the most accurate idea of who your buyer persona is. Your buyer persona includes information about the consumer that typically purchases your products or services. This includes details such as average age, their gender, their income levels and more. By making sure that your marketing team knows the buyer persona of your brand (and hasn’t developed its own idea of a buyer persona that differs from that of the sales team), your marketing team will be better able to target an accurate buyer persona via their marketing strategies, thereby sending more qualified leads to your sales team.

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Any marketing team that knows what they are doing knows that the brand’s message needs to be consistent. For example, the ads run on social channels such as Google+ or Facebook need to match the text and images that you use on your website’s landing pages. If they don’t, consumers will get confused about your message. The same can be said for the message your marketing is conveying and the message your sales team is conveying. Your sales team is out there providing your company’s message via presentations and pitches. The last thing you want is for a customer to feel like they are being advertised one thing but sold another. This hurts the trust they have in your brand. Make sure that your marketing team and your sales team are operating using a consistent message.

This is more important than you might think. Because marketing doesn’t always observe the customer reaction nor see the outcome of their campaigns in the moment whereas sales teams often see instant results, it can be difficult to establish the same goals. You can overcome this issue by setting common goals for both your marketing and sales team. For example, setting a number of leads that your marketing team should generate in order that your sales team can meet its specific goals.

Closed loop reporting is all about communication. When your marketing team sends its leads to your sales team, you should make sure that the sales team reports back. By providing marketing with feedback, the sales team will be given better leads and information to work with. This helps the sales team get more up to date contact information and statuses, while it will help the marketing team to adjust their strategy in order to give your sales team what it needs based on the feedback it gave them. A shocking number of businesses don’t implement this incredibly simple strategy. Communication between your marketing and sales departments is key, since this is what allows them to adjust their strategies for the better and helps improve your chances of success.

Draw up a contract that ensures your marketing team will only provide qualified leads that meet or exceed the criteria established by your sales team and that your sales team will act upon those leads within an agreed-upon time frame. This helps create trust and accountability between sales and marketing.
These are just a few of the ways in which you can get your sales and marketing departments on the same page.

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