How To Improve B2B Sales And Marketing Alignment

How to Improve B2B Sales and Marketing Alignment

It's no secret that optimizing sales and marketing strategies is essential whenit comes to facilitating the growth of your business. However, getting salesand marketing effectively aligned and optimized is not something B2B firmshave historically been, well. very good at.But fear not, establishing synergy between both of these strategies is a relatively straightforward process, if you are willing to put in the work.Let's explore a few core concepts regarding the importance of sales andmarketing alignment.

ENSURE THAT BOTH STRATEGIES SHAREIDENTICAL GOALSAs you may expect, the proper alignment ofyour sales and marketing teams involvesworking toward shared goals. For example,a goal that both departments strive towardcould include targeting a mutually agreedupon list of accounts. This is a verycommon practice known as account-basedmarketing, or ABM.Using an account based marketingapproach allows business to more effectively align sales and marketing goals and putin place mutual metrics for success. Let'stake a look at a brief example.David is the Commercial Vice President ofa B2B company that makes measurementand control devices.For the fourth quarter of the year, he wantsto generate at least 500,000 in revenueand generate at least 100 new qualifiedleads from his ABM target list. With thisinformation in mind, his marketing teamand his sales team would both be able towork toward hitting metrics that lead toABM account growth.In the above scenario, David's marketingteam could focus on lead generation andconversion by using targeted ads on LinkedIn to engage prospects and get them inthe sales funnel. The marketing department can then use nurturing strategies,consisting of email marketing and retargeting ads, laying the foundation for salesemployees to close deals with these prospects. Since those individuals will alreadyhave a familiar relationship with David'scompany from the brand building workdone by marketing, the sales funnel shouldmove more efficiently.Of course, the exact manner in which thisplays out will heavily depend on yourindustry, the size of your company, etc.However, setting common goals for bothdepartments is always highly beneficial.ABM is a powerful way to help ensurealignment.

ESTABLISH COMMUNICATION BETWEENBOTH TEAMSThe above example is not going to be veryeffective if your sales team and marketingteam don't actively communicate with eachother. It's up to your marketing team toacquire leads and establish a relationshipwith clients, and it's your sales team'sresponsibility to leverage the foundationthat has already been laid in order toincrease sales numbers.You should take any steps necessary toensure that both teams are consistently onthe same page.For example, you could hold weekly meetings that get both departments up to speedwith where the other is currently at.Upper-level employees from both teamsshould also regularly communicate witheach other and convey crucial informationback and forth.For instance, the head of your marketing team should be proactive aboutsupplying your sales team with datathat allows them to move forward withtheir own processes.

MARKETING SHOULDCOME FIRSTAs previously mentioned, one of yourmarketing team's core responsibilities is toestablish a relationship with your clients inorder to understand as much as they canabout their industry, their problems, andtheir commercial operations.At a fundamental level, you also need toensure that the correct type of prospect isbeing targeted. Sales and marketing teamsshould work toward co-developing an idealcustomer profile, or ICP, to ensure that youare more accurately spending your timeand resources toward generating qualifiedpipeline.Initiating a touchpoint with your ICP allbegins with your marketing strategy, andyour sales strategy cannot function correctly if your marketing tactics are not dialedin.Messaging is extremely important whencrafting the first touchpoints in your buyerjourney. Going through exercises to properly define your ICP, their needs, and theirbusiness problems will help you craft muchmore meaningful content. After all, youcan't expect someone to do business withyour company if they don’t understand thevalue that you have to offer.You'll need to consider factors like: The industry vertical you are targeting Size, age, and geographic location ofcompanies in the target market Most prominent issues within the industryand how your solution addresses them Level of awareness of the solution that youprovide The job functions that your buyers holdwithin their organizationsIn general, the more thoroughly you understand your ideal lead, the more efficientlyyou'll be able to target and communicatewith them. From here, your sales team canmove in and help them make the decisionthat's best for their company.Once marketing strategies, messaging, andtargeting are complete, the next step ismaking sure that marketing content andassets are being put to work by BOTH salesand marketing teams.One major breakdown is that marketingcontent all too often goes unused by sales.In fact, up to 80% of marketing contentgoes unused by sales reps. This poses amajor problem for getting ROI out of marketing's hard work.Sales enablement solutions can be a veryeffective tool to help improve sales andmarketing alignment and ensure that yoursales team always has access to marketingand sales content. More on this later.

LEVERAGE CUSTOMERTESTIMONIALSA cardinal rule of modern B2B business you should be passionate about collectingand leveraging your clients' feedback. Therecent introduction of the commercialflywheel concept heavily focuses on theimportance of sales, marketing, andcustomer support functions all workingtogether in your business to keepmomentum.A brief synopsis of the concept is that youare building your commercial operationsaround the full customer cycle – attracting the prospect, engaging them, thendelighting them after they have converted into a client.Customer testimonials and referrals canbe an incredibly powerful tool to helpyour sales teams validate the value ofyour solutions and build equity withpotential clients.If you don’t already have a strategic focuson gathering and leveraging customertestimonials, you should make this apriority in your strategy. The ROI you cangenerate here is massive and the activityalone creates a natural collaborationbetween sales and marketing.Let your sales team guide marketing byserving up opportunities to engage with topclients and learn how they use and valueyour solutions. The more conversationsmarketing team members can conduct themore equipped they will be to fully understand your market and your customers.This leads to a wealth of value beyond justcreating higher quality customer testimonial content.

IT’S EASIER TO RETAINTHAN ACQUIRELet’s go back to the flywheel concept for amoment to reinforce our next point. Onaverage, it's far easier (and cheaper) toretain an existing customer as opposed toacquiring a new one to replace them. Bothsales and marketing teams still have workto do even after you've made a sale to aclient, and it’s increasingly going to mean apartnership with customer support as well.We could easily write another full article onpost-sale customer success strategies (staytuned for that one ) but we’ll summarizehere.Much like we discussed at the beginning ofthis article, the success or failure of yourpost-sale strategies will greatly depend onhow well the teams are aligned and communicating.A few questions worth asking yourself: Does your marketing team have apost-sales nurturing cadence to keepongoing touchpoints with your clients? Does your sales team frequentlyengage with customer support toensure that they are up to speed on allof the post-sales activities and startupplans? Does your customer support teamprovide customer feedback, insight,and references back to your sales andmarketing team?Remember, the flywheel model works onlywhen the momentum is kept all the waythrough the customer experience.

Tools for Sales and Marketing AlignmentThere are many digital tools and platforms on the market to help facilitate better salesand marketing alignment. CRM and marketing automation are staples at this point. Ifyou don’t have both then you are already behind the game.Account based marketing tools are also another popular solution right now to helpteams work more tightly in sync around goals for targeting and converting prioritizedaccounts.The newest and arguably most effective tool in the modern B2B tech stack is a salesenablement platform. These systems help marketing and sales teams consolidate allof their marketing, sales, and training content into one central system that can proactively suggest activities for sales reps, based on data and machine learning.If you are interested in learning more about sales enablement solutions and how theycan drive results for your business, contact us today for a demo of Klyck.io, a salesenablement solution that was designed specifically for the needs of complex B2Bbusinesses.

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the sales funnel. The marketing depart-ment can then use nurturing strategies, consisting of email marketing and retar-geting ads, laying the foundation for sales . The newest and arguably most effective tool in the modern B2B tech stack is a sales enablement platform. These systems help marketing and sales teams consolidate all of their .