The Path to Sales and Marketing Alignment for New Product Launches

When sales and marketing teams are aligned, they can unite their strengths around a single focus: Delivering value for the customer. According to the report, “Moments of Trust: Why Customer Value Is the Key to Sales and Marketing Alignment” (LinkedIn, 2020), 87% of sales and marketing leaders say collaboration between sales and marketing enables critical business growth, and almost the same amount thinks this alignment is the largest opportunity to improve business performance. So, while the mutual benefit is clear, the path forward may not be. Let’s dig into a common alignment use case: Launching a product or service for a new market.

#1: Assess your sales teams’ knowledge and needs

To build a house, you start with the foundation. So, before you begin writing, designing and dumping new content into sales reps’ hands, take a step back. The sales team needs to feel comfortable with each market or vertical that’s relevant to the product launch, so seek to understand your reps’ current level of knowledge. Find out what they know and what they need—turning gaps into opportunities for new content.

Don’t forget: a content strategy should start with vision. When you’re ready to start tailoring materials to new verticals, read our blog, 3 Steps to Creating Winning Content for Your Vertical Marketing Strategy.

#2: Ask for direct and honest feedback

The sales and marketing teams offer different perspectives that you can use to your advantage. Rather than assuming marketing understands what your customers need most, connect with the sales team to hear what customers are saying firsthand.

There’s nothing more disappointing for marketing teams than creating materials that aren’t used—and the sales team doesn’t want an influx of materials they don’t feel comfortable using. While it can be easy to get caught up in the latest marketing trends or buzz words, any material must pass the sales smell test. Ask yourself:

• Is it authentic to the needs of the customer?
• Is it framed in a way they will relate to?

#3: Communicate the opportunity and priorities

To create the most targeted and impactful materials, each touchpoint needs to be tailored to the priority opportunities. The organizations that have conversations around these priorities ahead of time, before material creation, will have more success than those who don’t.

All verticals and markets won’t be equal priorities—and that’s OK! Talk with the sales team to understand which verticals have the most revenue potential. And if you have a design target that helps people know which organizations to target, all the better.

Knowing which leads are truly “qualified” is a good litmus test for sales and marketing alignment. By agreeing on a shared definition of qualified leads and your targets, you’re setting the organization up for success.

#4: Do more than deliver materials

When it comes to sales enablement, quality over quantity is critical to avoid information overload. Focus on creating the materials that add the most value—identify trends in what the sales team needs and work to address those first.

But keep this in mind: Not all marketing collateral is intuitive to use. Before releasing beautifully written and designed materials, provide some context. Share details on when and how each piece of material can be used, which stage of the funnel to implement—and even flag which materials are meant for certain personas. In developing this context, consider:

• Does the sales team understand how one piece of collateral connects to another one?
• Do they know how each piece aligns to the buyer’s journey or is tailored to specific personas?

Whether you’re a small firm or a global enterprise, when it comes to new services or product launches, marketing and sales alignment is the key to your success. By asking the right questions and building a solid foundation, you can achieve shared goals that have greater impact on revenue and growth.

If you’re in need of a partner to help with your marketing and sales alignment, let’s chat.