When two departments that share the same goal work in silos with little to no communication, serious problems can arise. If those departments are marketing and sales, disaster is imminent. Unsynchronized efforts, campaigns with no ROI, and lost deals all translate to a loss of revenue.

Alignment between marketing and sales might be one of the most important synergies in a company. It takes a consistent and collaborative effort, but it is more than possible. How to get started? By clarifying the responsibilities of each team first.

The Role of Marketing and Sales in B2B

The marketing team is responsible for creating awareness of the company's products and services. Marketing activities provide value, educate, and establish the brand as an expert in their area. The marketing team creates informed campaigns and content that drives traffic to the company website, pays it forward (helps selflessly without expecting anything in return), and ultimately, generates leads.

The sales team, in turn, is responsible for accompanying those leads on the journey to customers, thus bringing in revenue for the company. They work on building relationships with potential customers over a longer period of time, understanding customer needs, and showing how the company's products and services can help them solve their problems and achieve their goals.

There is a fairly clear line between where marketing’s responsibilities end and where sales takes over. However, if the sales team is disconnected from the buyer journey from awareness to lead stage, or marketing is disconnected from the journey that customers follow after they’re “handed over” to sales, there’s no synergy to talk about.

Achieving Synergy Between Marketing and Sales

  1. Understanding the Audience: Both teams should have the same level of understanding of the target audience. Immerse yourself in any persona research or segmentation and keep the pulse on the market and buyer needs/pain points. This will help both marketing and sales develop targeted marketing campaigns and sales strategies that speak to potential customers.
  2. Using Consistent Messaging: Consistency in messaging is key to presenting a unified front to customers. Each touchpoint with your company has to be memorable and on-brand, independent of which department is behind that touchpoint. Use the same language, highlight key benefits, and address pain points consistently across all communications, whether they come from the marketing or the sales team. This builds trust, reinforces brand identity, and ensures a seamless (and professional) experience.
  3. Cross-using Content and Collateral: Marketing and sales teams should collaborate to create and share content and collateral. Marketing can provide sales with valuable resources like case studies, podcast episodes, and blog posts to support their sales efforts. In return, sales can provide marketing with feedback and insights on customer interactions, helping to refine and improve content strategy, channels, and collateral.
  4. Prioritizing Communication and Collaboration: Open and frequent communication between marketing and sales teams is essential. Standing weekly meetings, joint brainstorming sessions, and feedback loops allow both teams to share insights, align strategies, discuss trends, and address any challenges.
  5. Creating Mutually Accountable Goals: This means setting shared objectives that both teams are responsible for achieving. At the end of the day, both teams are driving revenue growth, together. Regular KPI check-ins and campaign performance reviews can help track progress, see what went well and what didn’t go so well, and ensure accountability on both sides.

Measuring Success

Establishing clear metrics makes it easy to evaluate efforts, track progress, and identify areas for improvement. Read more on what metrics to track in your marketing here.

  • Leads Conversion Rate: Conversion rate and lead-to-customer ratio can give you an idea of campaign success and make it easy to attribute revenue to (and repeat) different activities.
  • Customer Acquisition Cost: CAC is calculated by dividing total marketing and sales spend by the number of clients acquired over a set period of time. This metric helps determine the efficiency of your marketing and sales efforts. You should be aiming to reduce your CAC as much as possible.
  • Average Sales Cycle Length: This metric defines the average time a visitor/prospect takes to become a customer. Take the number of days from the first lead touchpoint until the day of the sale for each deal closed and divide that by the number of deals closed. Optimizing and reducing the average sales cycle length interests both teams.
  • Customer Satisfaction: Gather feedback from customers through post-mortem surveys or calls to assess how well you’re meeting customer needs. High customer satisfaction indicates you’re doing a good job and delivering value.

When marketing and sales teams work together in harmony, they can achieve remarkable results and create a seamless customer experience. With consistent messaging, collaboration on content creation, and mutually accountable goals, marketing and sales can achieve the synergy needed for success and effective revenue generation. Measuring success through key performance indicators allows both teams to track their progress and make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement.