*This blog was written by Lisa Behning, Director of Marketing at Vendition.
Hey Sales Leaders, feel like you’re waging a never-ending battle trying to get new leads and move them through your sales funnel? While you may feel alone in this fight, have you looked at who can be your biggest supporter when times get tough? Yes, that team, right next to you – your marketing team.
While sales and marketing are typically involved in different ways throughout the sales process – what I like to term as the “hard closers” on the sales side versus the “soft sellers” in marketing – both are needed to bring a sale to the finish line. Recent research by Marketo and Reachforce uncovered that businesses are 67% better at closing deals when sales and marketing work together.
Becoming aligned can be tough, but the payout for you, your team, and the entire company is well worth the work! Let’s walk through four easy ways that sales and marketing can combine forces so you and your SDRs have the support you need to win the sale!
How Do You Talk to A Prospect?
How marketing and sales talk to prospective customers serves as the foundation for strongly aligned teams. Known as your brand voice or company tone, your prospect should feel like they’re hearing the same words, phrases and overarching messaging from the first interaction through successful implementation.
How to align: Meet with your marketing team and…
- Review your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) – has this company changed? Have your personas changed?
- Walk through today’s market conditions – how is this affecting your ICP?
- Update your company’s value propositions and elevator pitches to each ICP and personas so both teams are using the same language.
Are You Targeting The Same Audience?
Even though both teams have their own objectives, it pays to focus on the same audience! While marketing is running brand awareness, lead generation or remarketing campaigns, all designed to get your company name in front of your ICP and target personas, your SDRs can be calling on those same companies.
How to align: Meet with your marketing team and…
- Review your sales steps or funnel against the marketing funnel; are your respective activities complementing each other? If not, what adjustments can you make short- and long-term to resolve this?
- Share prospect lists so both teams are targeting the same companies and personas, making your messaging and marketing dollars hit where it counts.
- Check in about lead scoring possibilities, where your marketing team assigns a point system to interactions a person takes with marketing efforts, with higher intent actions like downloading a playbook or signing up for a webinar receiving more points than opening an email. Once a person crosses a threshold of so many points accumulated, your marketing team knows this warmed-up lead is a solid prospect for sales to connect with.
What Collateral Are You Jointly Developing?
Sales teams need consistent materials – like slide decks and sell sheets – plus a constant source of new high calorie media such as explainer videos, case studies, blogs and how to’s, testimonials, and more to illustrate why your company is THE one your prospect should choose. Partnering together to make sure what is being created is actually of value is going to save both teams time, money and stress!
How to align: Meet with your marketing team and…
- Review your ICP and personas against current objections your SDRs are hearing, then determine if you are missing collateral or media that can help tell the story better.
- Offer your support! Jump in and write a guest blog, participate in a video, or share a cool idea from a competitor or company you follow. Sometimes all a project needs is a jumping off point, so pitching in can speed up the creative process.
How Often Are You Meeting?
With both teams often working long hours trying to cram in just one more opportunity, deal or campaign, we get that finding extra time in the day to connect can be tough. But just as you regularly review your sales metrics, you also need to make sure you’re sharing and discussing those metrics with your partners-in-creation on the marketing side.
How to align: Meet with your marketing team and…
- Share sales numbers and marketing metrics regularly – whether it’s once per week or once per quarter, having a regular cadence of discussing what’s working and what’s not in sales will help keep each team in-the-know about what sales pitch is connecting well with which audience or what content prospects seem to interact with the most. You’ll be amazed at the ideas that come out of these meetings for both teams, too!
Vendition As Your Partner
While we can’t directly help you create alignment between your sales and marketing teams, we know what it takes to help you find SDRs who get the big picture and can work collaboratively with internal teams as well as prospects.
When you’re ready to source, mentor and coach your right-fit SDR to a quota-exceeding rockstar, look no further than Vendition. Connect with us to start the process, today!