In our article the other week we discussed how to get your sales and marketing teams working together towards common goals and objectives so that you can improve sales performance and conversion rates.
Today we take a look at some of the practical benefits your business will gain from aligning sales and marketing teams so that they are working closely rather than independently.
Increased profits
Let’s be honest the biggest, and probably the most important, benefit of getting your sales and marketing team working together like a well-oiled machine is that you will see a dramatic increase in profitability.
By working closely sales teams know that the leads they are passed by marketing will be high quality and meet the criteria needed to convert them from a prospect into a customer. If there is misalignment between the teams the quality of leads will be much lower and take more effort and resources to convert into customers.
Teamwork always wins
When teams work closely the better they communicate and the stronger their relationships. This means that they will trust each other and rather than just working on their own tasks will cooperate to achieve common goals.
Working together will improve the sales process so that when leads are handed off between marketing and sales potential customers are given confidence that their requirements will already be understood and they are more likely to become a customer.
A better understanding of your ideal customer
Your marketing team will be responsible for creating buyer personas which they will develop with insights from website and social media data, research and client interviews but they do not benefit from the day to day conversations that your sales team has with customers and prospects.
The sales team understand the pain points and goals of prospects. What issues are most important to them and what will turn a lead into a customer. By working together your sales and marketing team can combine both knowledge and insights to gain a much better understanding of your ideal customers and create accurate personas.
Higher quality sales leads
It is human nature to blame someone else for failure. We often work with sales teams who blame the marketing department for passing them poor quality leads that are not ready to convert but they have not supported the marketing department in attracting these prospects
Our consultants have found that promoting sales and marketing alignment your teams will share data and ideas so that they are able to:
Shape the right personas to target
Identify what information and resources your prospects will engage with
Understand and identify when an MQL becomes an SQL
Run a professional hand off process
Work together to convert the lead
Constructive feedback
By encouraging communication between your sales and marketing teams they begin to work together and these strong relationships mean that together they will help refine future lead generation strategies for your business.
Alignment means that both sales and marketing are able to share ideas, give practical feedback on lead quality and adapt campaigns so that they are working towards common goals and objectives.
Competitive advantage
Your marketing team will spend a lot of time monitoring and reporting on what your competition is doing. Whether it is new resources and content added to a website or an inbound marketing campaign information needs to shared and utilised.
By working together your sales team will benefit from the information gathered so that they can adjust their own tactics and sales approach which addresses prospects questions clearly and helps convert them into a customer.
Improved return on investment
Every business is looking to improve their return on investment of their sales and marketing activities. Leads can be very expensive to generate and improving conversion rates can be better than increasing the number of leads if your company wants to hit it’s objectives.
If your sales and marketing team is aligned and working towards shared objectives they will be able to seamlessly pass leads between themselves to ensure that prospects are nurtured and opportunities are not lost. By improving overall conversion rates rather than increasing the number of leads your business will see a greater ROI.
At Volpes Marketing we understand the value of ensuring that your sales and marketing teams work together to generate high quality sales leads. Our expert marketing consultants work with companies throughout Cheshire, Manchester and the North West on a range of projects including developing lead generation programmes and managing their day to day marketing activities. If you would like to find out more call us on 01625 403199.
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