Sales and marketing often feel like they’re speaking different languages - and sometimes they are! Here’s our guide to translating the jargon between the two departments.
“Marketers today are focused on converting the visitors they attract into leads and customers.” – State of Inbound 2016.If you think that sounds more like the goal of a salesperson, you’re not wrong. However, you’re not completely right. More and more, marketing and sales teams are working towards the same goals, and the traditional structure of the two working in silos is no longer practical.According to Accent , “When there is little communication, support and collaboration between sales and marketing, it leads to wasted resources, significant delays and overall inefficiency within the company.” On the flipside, companies with proper alignment of sales and marketing goals close 38% more deals than those without.
Image source: GIPHY
Are you worried that your sales and marketing teams aren’t seeing eye-to-eye? HubSpot has outlined some tell-tale signs of misalignment you can use to diagnose this all too common cross-department problem.
Signs that your company might be misaligned
1. Inconsistent messaging
Marketing needs to promise what the sales team can deliver. Bear in mind that while the marketing team can put a message out into the world, the world is going to come back to the salesperson for answers, and your sales team need to know what to expect.
2. Poor communication between teams
If your sales team never know what your marketing team are up to, and vice versa, alignment between the two becomes almost well-nigh impossible. The benefits of getting the two on the same page is that companies with better communication are 4.5 times more likely to have engaged employees, who care for the outcome of their work, and can help each other achieve their goals.
3. The wrong leads coming through the pipeline
If marketing and sales don’t communicate about what a quality lead looks like, it become impossible for marketers to attract the right leads for the sales team. At the same time, the sales team will feel that the marketing team just don’t get it, and wouldn’t know a good lead if it hit them in the face.
4. Not speaking the same language
What your sales people might call a lead is what your marketers will call a contact. Not knowing exactly what the other team is talking about means that goals will be misunderstood and frustrations will arise. Read our translation guide to be sure you’re both on the same page.
5. Missed opportunities
The biggest drawback to poor alignment is missed opportunities. According to HubSpot, “88% of missed opportunities were caused because sales couldn’t find or leverage internal resources.” If your sales and marketing team don’t communicate with each other about what has or hasn’t been promised to a prospect, chances are that opportunity will fall through the cracks.
Tips on how to align
HubSpot offers some great tips on alignment. Here are our favourite five:
- Meet regularly
- Coordinate your content marketing campaigns with Sales
- Help showcase your salesperson's expertise
- Facilitate training if needed
- Have fun and get to know each other
Are you ready to align your sales and marketing team? Contact us today and let’s work together.
