Either way, revenue is still down.
There is significant data to prove the benefits of aligning an organisation’s business development strategy with the marketing strategy. On the face of it, it seems a simple and completely sensible approach. It’s a no-brainer, actually. Organisations where business development and marketing teams work to a single marketing and sales strategy have 36% higher customer retention rates and 38% higher sales close rates than other organisations.
So what is stopping it from happening?
What can businesses do to improve the situation?
Lack of alignment between these internal teams results in fewer sales and a longer pipeline — not to mention the hit to company culture and morale as both teams chase separate targets – and neither win. Without effective marketing, there are no prospects to sell to, and without a business development or sales team to convert those prospects into customers, marketing efforts have been completely wasted.
Often, sales teams need more knowledge of the marketing process and vice versa. For example, a social media marketer told me about posting on the company’s social media only to receive an exasperated call from the Sales Director saying that the product he’d promoted was discontinued ….. And this isn’t an isolated case.
One of my colleagues proudly tells of a wonderful, award-winning, marketing campaign developed in a previous role. They received a bonus for hitting all their marketing metrics. However, the business development team completely ignored the campaign as they didn’t feel it meant anything to the customers.
Aligning Marketing and Sales strategies isn’t a new concept. In 2012, Zoltners, Sinha and Lorimer wrote: “Well-aligned marketing and sales teams create a powerful, unified, customer-facing force that enables a company to successfully differentiate its products and services from competitors as well as sell value, consistently reinforce its brands, and drive company revenues, profits, and market share”
But why? They’re all good people, right?
So, why are there still challenges? Everyone is working hard, doing their job to the best of their ability. No one is trying to make life more difficult.
There are several challenges that senior teams face in working to overcome misalignment and deliver a collaborative approach:
Organisational structure
Marketing and sales teams have traditionally operated as separate entities in many organisations.
Business Development and sales may report to a Commercial Director or CCO with Marketing under a CMO or Marketing Director. Where the strategic objectives, processes, budgets, targets and goals are not aligned at Board level, it’s difficult to see how a collaborative approach can be developed successfully across other levels of the organisation.
Technology and data
Marketing and sales teams often rely on different technologies for collecting and measuring data. This creates data silos and makes it impossible to exchange insight. According to their available data, they are both moving in the right direction – although not as a single unit.
And it’s one thing that both teams agree on – the biggest impediment to alignment is a lack of accurate data on prospects and customers.
KPI and Metric measurement
For a typical marketer, a low cost per lead (CPL) indicates a successful campaign. But this metric doesn’t mean much to salespeople. This is because 79% of leads generated by marketers don’t convert to sales.
Sales and Business Development metrics are more industry-based. B2B business development professionals measure success by the pipeline of potential revenue generation. D2C success can be based on win rates and revenue generated.
Without working towards a shared set of metrics, it’s difficult to see or care whether the other team is succeeding.
Organisational Culture
There are historical reasons that the teams feel distanced from each other that will take some time to undo. Business Development and Sales are receiving bonus payments for landing a new client-driven out of a marketing campaign; Marketing is trying to ‘control’ sales interactions as they are ‘off-brand’; Business Development is joyfully ignoring guidelines and strategy. And a complete lack of understanding of each department’s challenges in achieving its goals.
Building a bridge
In most instances, creating a specific department that straddles both teams and strategies is not feasible or cost-effective.
Getting the teams to work together may not be easy. While the idea of sales and marketing teams socialising together, jumping on calls together, brainstorming together, and having a group chat may be ideal, it’s often a long way off without a total transformation in culture and process.
So how can you start the process of alignment? How do you speed up the process of having insights into what both departments need and combining goals to create successful strategies for both?
Marketing & Sales Enablement
Marketing and sales Enablement is the process of aligning end-to-end marketing and sales strategies within an organisation to improve revenue, increase profit, reduce duplicated effort, and improve customer and client satisfaction.
Wouldn’t that be lovely?
However, rather than trying to deliver a complete organisational change in structure, process, and data from the top down, marketing and sales enablement can be achieved by breaking the strategic approach down into bite-sized pieces, making it much more achievable. Elements of a programme may include:
- Restructure and develop a single customer journey and website UX
- Create buyer-centric, relevant, and helpful content
- Provide opportunities for business development and sales to engage with the strategic approach, breaking down silos
- Develop shared insight and data
- Develop an accurate and realistic buyer persona that works for both marketing and sales
- Agree and measure joint KPIs
- Build out an end-to-end process for marketing through to customer or client win
- Use actual customer or client feedback to build relevant marketing material
- Create brand consistency throughout the marketing/sales process
- Create marketing-led sales assets
Whilst a strong Marketing & Sales Enablement strategy can enhance the effectiveness of any organisation, according to Zoltners ‘it is particularly critical for companies that face uncertainty or significant competitive intensity, that have business concentrated among a few large customers, or that are launching new products and services’.
