A quick search on LinkedIn reveals 14,567 Marketing Directors and 16,215 Sales Directors in Guildford, yet only 9,649 Sales AND Marketing Directors in the same area. So what?

In our many years of experience, both in corporate environments and small to medium-sized enterprises, an aligned sales and marketing function is far more powerful than separate teams acting independently. Sales and marketing must direct their efforts at the same prospects and be completely aligned on target audiences, messaging, features and benefits, pricing and payment terms in order to drive revenue in an upward direction.
Here are five ways sales and marketing should work together:

1. Identify target audiences – who are you selling to, what are the pain points for each audience, how will you fix these pain points with the products or services you sell?
2. Map out the sales process – what touch points are required to drive the prospect through to proposal, lead and sales statuses? How will marketing communicate at each of these touch points?
3. Create content together – standardise messaging, proposal wording and pricing where possible so that you communicate consistently, tailoring the finer detail to suit your prospect’s needs.
4. Formalise lead scoring – talk often about the lead cycle and where each prospect falls at any given time. How can you move those prospects to the next stage of the buying process?
5. Measure everything together – establish what works (and do more of it) and establish what doesn’t work (and either tweak to make it more effective or do less of it).

We’re as passionate about sales as we are about marketing, because one can’t function effectively without the other. If you need help with how your teams can be brought together, and the strategic reasons and implementation to make it happen, contact us to arrange a meeting.