How to Foster Sales and Marketing Alignment – Part 2

You already know that sales and marketing alignment is important. That’s not new news to B2B companies. Even so, bringing those two teams together to rally towards shared goals often feels elusive. It takes focus and commitment, but it’s possible.

We covered five steps to help you build a foundation for sales and marketing alignment in a previous post. This time, we’ll walk through some tangible actions you can take to keep your teams in sync.

1. Align on Content Distribution

It’s no secret that quality sales enablement content helps keep B2B companies on the radar of top prospects. But sales and marketing teams may have different ideas about what types of assets matter most.

Given their different roles, that’s not surprising. Marketing pros have a keen eye for trends and awareness building. And sales reps often want more practical content that helps close deals.

How can you bridge the gap?

Marketing should never create content in a vacuum. You can bring sales into the process early and keep them looped in by:

• Creating a shared content calendar that lets teams ideate on topics together and know what assets are in the works.
• Bringing teams together to brainstorm topics that connect with prospects at every stage of the funnel.
• Tracking and communicating metrics to let everyone know content that’s working and what may need to go back to the drawing board.

2. Use Common Technology

Technology can make work faster and easier—unless a lack of integration prevents teams from working together.

That’s an all-too common problem. Sales has its CRM solutions for storing customer and prospect data and deal status. Meanwhile, marketing has automation tools for campaigns that also house contact data.

If these systems don’t talk to each other, it’s easy for data to fall out of sync. Yes, there are manual workarounds, but who has time for that during a busy workday?

A better approach is choosing a common platform for sales and marketing. Another option is using a tool that integrates with your existing tech stack and brings information into a shared space that everyone can access.

That way, your sales and marketing teams have the latest on customers at their fingertips and keep propelling deals forward.

3. Create a Culture of Transparency

The best workplaces have something in common: Trust.

People need to know that leaders are honest. They need to feel certain that they can count on colleagues to step up and do their part.

How can you cultivate this sense of openness?

Authentic, consistent, clear communication is key. Holding regular, joint sales-marketing meetings allows the two teams to connect and communicate. With quick weekly or monthly check-ins, you can keep everyone on the same page, moving forward.

Another idea is marketers sitting in on sales calls. This can create big “aha” moments that help the marketing team understand their prospects’ point of view. Not able to make this happen live? Record calls (with permission, of course) and make them available virtually.

4. Report on Results – Together

Sales and marketing depend on each other to succeed—and both play a big role in your company’s success.

That’s why you need to keep revenue targets and key performance indicators (KPIs) in front of both teams. You can also publish pipeline data, so sales and marketing know how leads are flowing through the pipeline. Make “progress towards goals” a recurring agenda item at joint team meetings or create a shared online dashboard.

Communicate results regularly, so there’s no ambiguity. Then, sales and marketing teams can know if they’re tracking to objectives. If your metrics are missing the mark, they can recalibrate and strategize to recover lost ground.

 5. Celebrate Shared Successes

Whenever your teams hit targets, take time out to celebrate.

This doesn’t have to be a complex undertaking. Sometimes the simplest acts have the biggest impacts:

• Send emails to the entire sales and marketing team about big wins, like closed deals and product launches.
• Create virtual “praise walls” to record and recognize successes.
• Set aside time at joint meetings for people to give shoutouts to teammates.
• Host lunches or virtual get-togethers when you achieve key goals.
• Inject some fun with giveaways for gift cards, meal vouchers and more.

When you meet major milestones, you can celebrate on a bigger scale. An off-site or teambuilding activity can help your sales and marketing teams establish bonds and reenergize themselves to tackle what’s next.

It’s Time to Align

Today’s digital world isn’t slowing down. And that means B2B companies can’t let sales and marketing disconnects prevent them from forging ahead. Even if you’ve made good progress bringing sales and marketing together, there’s still room to grow.

Each step makes a difference. Putting the practices we’ve outlined in this post and part one of this series can help you succeed and blaze a path for others to follow. If you’re interested in speaking with one of our team members about how Standing Partnership can help you align sales and marketing, contact us at inquiries@standingpartnership.com.