To align marketing and sales is one of those goals that can feel like a pipe dream. The good news is that it’s entirely possible and not too difficult. At least with a few tools & tips.
To align marketing and sales can feel like a huge challenge. After all, you’ve got different teams that might have worked seperately until now, and getting them on the same page won’t be a walk in the park. That said, it’s not as difficult as it might seem – especially if you get a good starting point.
This is exactly what we’ll try to give you in this little article. Where you’ll find some nice tips for how you can align sales and marketing, and that will help you make said alignment a reality. Which, in turn, can give all the added benefits that come with that.
4 tips to align marketing & sales
To put together a good list of tips, we did our research and found some great information. Then, we sat down and looked at how we at SP_CE work to get marketing and sales on the same page, and crunched it all until we had a few simple tips. Namely:
1. Get sales and marketing into the same room
As a first step, it’s great if marketing and sales can gather and talk about what has been going on earlier and how the path forward should look. For example, this can give marketing some nice input on what content is needed in what part of the buying journey, and sales can get an idea of what content has historically performed well for a certain audience. These gatherings can be a good starting point for setting a plan together as well as goals to go with that plan.
Of course, marketing and sales may not always share the same KPIs, but there are a lot of things they can agree on. The important thing here is that the departments start talking, though, and that there’s a framework for how to move in the same direction.
2. Coordinate content efforts with the sales journey
Once marketing has learned more about the actual sales journey and what content is needed when, it’s time to produce content that works well for the different parts of said journey. In other words, it’s time to create content that is made and crafted for specific parts of the buying journey and the funnel you’re working with there. It’s also time to cluster and repurpose content that already exists, and that has been identified as suited for a specific part of the buying journey.
3. Get the right content to sales and make sure they’re in the loop
Ok, so once there is content to use, it needs to be used right. I.e. you may be working actively with an ABM approach (or at least working to personalize your sales approach), when sales need to know what content to use when and for whom. Here, you could make a structure with folders, or go one step further and use the SP_CE Showroom. Which is basically a space that marketing can design and fill with all the content that is relevant for a specific account or prospects at a certain stage of their buying journey. A space that can easily be shared, giving sales a perfectly packaged micro-site that is ready to be used instantly.
In other words, sales won’t have to look through a ton of folders or old email threads to find the right content to use in the right moment, and marketing can rest easy knowing that the message is always consistent.
4. Check the data and iterate
As marketing execute on campaigns to drive leads and sales work with their prospects, you need to see how the process is going and how content is converting. So that you can tweak the content or add more where needed. In other words, it’s time to gather marketing and sales again and go through what has happened and what should be done next.
If you’re using the SP_CE Showroom to share content with specific accounts (or our Sales Room to drive a deal forward and meet with a prospect over time), you will here have a ton of data to inform your next step. Since our Showrooms and Sales Rooms let you see how prospects and accounts navigate your Showrooms and Sales Rooms, what content they look at and what isn’t catching their attention.
Want to learn more about aligning your marketing and sales, or see how SP_CE can help marketing and sales become best friends? Contact us for a demo and we’ll show you how it works.