You want your sales team to increase sales. But do you find your marketing team and sales team always competing for first place to secure customers? They should never compete or display any rivalry either. Both teams are needed just as much as the other.
It used to be that the marketing team focused on finding customers and the sales team brought in the sale. But as attribution technology has improved so much, marketers are able to stay with the customer throughout their lifecycle journey including after the close.
Because marketers are able to speak the sales language, it’s important for the sales team and the marketing team to work together and go after the same goal which is ROI.
If you want to win at getting a higher ROI, you must understand what both teams need to succeed.
Agree On Expectations
KPIs (key performance indicators) is how expectations in the business world are figured out.
Everyone on each team has different KPIs. But they still work towards the same goal which is to make the company money?
Your marketing team will probably look at lead generation as a way to reveal which markets, channels and targeting profiles yield high-quality leads.
And your sales team will look at leads differently. They want to know which brought in the highest ROI and which were the easiest to close.
The best way for both teams to get on the same page is to have them talk about and record what they decide on KPIs.
This important document is called a marketing and sales SLA (service level agreement). It holds the goals for each team. And it highlights when an MQL becomes an SQL and ready to be handed off.
What’s an MQL? It’s a Marketing Qualified Lead. This lead is someone who is interested in what a business has to offer based on marketing efforts. Marketing leads are more likely to become a customer.
What is SQL? It’s a Sales Qualified Lead. SQL is the next stage in the customer journey after the MQL. It means the sales team has qualified a lead as a potential customer. The SQL is in the buying cycle, while the MQL is not ready for that buying stage yet.
Therefore, once the SLA (service level agreement) is completed it holds the exact guidelines and there will be no questions asked about when and how something will be done.
This document keeps the marketing and sales teams working successfully together.
Deliver High-Quality Leads That Are Ready For Sales
You want high-quality leads that are ready for sales so you can increase sales. But sales teams complain about low-quality leads all the time.
Remember the marketing team sends the sales team tons of leads. To get better leads for the sales team, ask the sales team what their perfect customer looks like. Then the marketing team can build a strategy to find those ideal customers.
The sales team will describe the type of customer they’ve already had success with. And they obviously would want more success with those types of people.
Develop buyer personas based on the sales team information. Look for indicators in your current customer base for who your ideal customer is. Also, do lots of market research. Research using Facebook, for example, as a tool to help you find data as you build your personas.
Build and refine your strategies around the ideal customer personas you found. Make your targeted campaigns speak to this person.
Collaborate
The sales team usually has a lot of marketing collateral laying around but they don’t use it very often. Marketing teams usually design pamphlets or presentations that are collecting dust. Only because they weren’t created with a sales focus. They don’t speak to the ideal customer. And they pretty much never come with the directions on how to use them.
The thing to do is get the marketing team talking with the sales team and keep them talking. Find out what the sales team needs. Maybe the sales team is answering questions that they have to explain over and over. They can communicate this situation to the marketing team and they can whip up a document that answers all those questions. Then the sales team can direct customers to that document.
Find out what’s been working for the sales team and what’s never been touched.
After the initial communication, continue to collaborate with the sales team. Use a shared document? where the sales team can add new requests and offer feedback on any existing pieces. The sales team can share their insights they got about customers to who they gave different pieces of collateral to and how well it was received.
Even if you have the best collateral in the world, it doesn’t do any good if the sales team doesn’t know it exists or if they do, they don’t know how to use it. Collaborate with the sales team and make all that information known. This could help lead them to increase sales.
Make Sure You Communicate With The Other Team
Quite often communicating can prevent a lot of problems. A good idea is to have regular meetings together. You can discuss any KPI updates, work that’s in progress, collateral building and results data.
Keep the lines of communication open and avoid disasters.
Remember the SLA you developed at the beginning of your relationships? Talk about what’s on your SLA. You want to share results and sales updates regularly. This is how the business will grow and increase sales.
It’s best to trust the process because it will pay off. If you continue to communicate with the sales team on an ongoing basis, both teams will be able to increase sales for the company. It’s not a one-way street. Although in the beginning, it might feel like marketing is working for the sales team. But it will definitely pay off for everyone involved.