How to Get Sales and Marketing to Work Together
You might have read that sales and marketing don't often work well together.
In too many organizations sales and marketing don’t even talk to each other. What a shame. It's good business when sales and marketing work together. Cooperation benefits both groups and also increases sales. Here’s how it’s done right.
Getting sales and marketing to work together
1. Understand the needs of the other department
Maybe the sales-marketing disconnect occurs because the departments don’t know what each one needs from the other. If you’re in marketing, be very clear about what sales needs from your department. Your job is to give sales the tools they need to sell. It could be the contacts to get started, a sales kit, a data sheet, or white papers to help customers understand their problems.
Sales wants the vision of where your company is going. They want accurate information that helps them sell. They want sales leads to flow to them so they can sell to them. Marketing brings a vision of the industry as a whole.
In return, sales must tell marketing what customers are concerned with. Marketing needs an understanding of what customer critical needs are so it can craft the marketing message throughout the year at trade shows, on the Web or in press releases.
Sales is absolutely critical to get the customers’ vision to market. Salespeople can help by attending customer symposiums. They should listen for customer information on future business directions that could impact products. Report this to marketing.
2. Start talking
Open and frequent communication of both departments should happen by design. Do you need a liaison between sales and marketing? You could start a team of former salespeople who attend internal sales staff meetings even though they’re not on the sales team. Talk about what is and isn’t working at these meetings. High-level managers in sales, marketing and manufacturing should also meet quarterly to review program effectiveness account by account. Webinars of products will also help both sales and marketing.
Make sure marketing and sales are talking to each other about customers. When marketing staff meets with customers they should report the meeting to salespeople. The report can be an email. Include meeting attendees, what was discussed and their follow up. Salespeople should do the same with marketing.
More articles from AllBusiness.com:
- The Role of HR & Other Departments in Customer Experience
- Customer Service Is Not a Department, It’s a Culture
- To Share or Not to Share Your Media Lists
- Keeping Customers Is the New Lead Generation
- Marketing and Sales Teams at Odds? Bring Them Together by Following These 5 Steps
3. Share information
Competitive intelligence is critical for marketing. Marketing reads research reports to gather information; sales adds to the information by reporting what they see during sales calls. Salespeople should report how they win new business to enable marketing to see what’s working. Leads are critical for sales. Marketing can enhance trade show participation. Rather than be limited to just gathering names, filter the leads so that the most likely prospects get sales attention. Make sure the information is centrally available.
It's a real benefit when sales and marketing are on the same team
It’s a lucky salesperson who says, “My marketing department sells for me.” It’s a successful marketer who says, “My sales department works with me.” Who says business has to rely on luck? Start your sales and marketing dialogue today.
