Tips On Improving Your Sales And Marketing

As the saying goes, two heads are better than one. And so do two teams. You should know that when teams are united, there is always a bigger achievement than a single team.

In this case, we are looking at marketing and sales working together, what and how much they can actually achieve and how we can actually get these teams to work together.

Sales and Marketing teams work towards fulfilling the same goal: securing business by making more sales and revenue and helping the company grow through increased profits and expansion; however, the way they execute their duties is what differs.

How do you understand marketing and sales? Do you know the difference between the two? Let us break these two words down and explain each of them differently as we proceed to this article's main topic.

Sales refer to a direct contact in which the sales representative engages the customer in a conversation that motivates and encourages them towards making a purchase. This could be in person or face to face, over the phone call, or it could be done while using digital communication media channels like email or social media where people can easily exchange a conversation like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or even YouTube.

The selling process could be long while discussing at different times and days as the sales representative learns or gets to know about the behaviors of the customers, their preferences, interests and likes while showing them how their product could be of help in respect to addressing his or her needs.

The selling process can also be short in a way that the prospective client could have been looking for that certain service or product. Therefore no need to first elaborate how the product or service will be useful to them because they already have prior knowledge about it; thus, selling to such a client would be a single conversation, then the sales representative lays out the terms of the deal processes the sale.

Marketing is designed to increase awareness of a brand or product to the target consumers or individuals. Marketers don’t usually deal with people or customers face to face; instead, they employ methods that reach out to many people as possible.

There are several methods employed by the marketing teams, and some these include;

• Content marketing

• Social media marketing

• Email marketing

• Organic traffic and search engine optimization (SEO)

• Pay Per Click ads

In many companies, marketing and sales teams don’t work together but instead, operate independently. This has been a big stumbling block to so many companies for quite a several years.

Here is a list of the major challenges that disregard proper alignment of sales and marketing teams.

· Inaccurate shared data regarding accounts and prospects

· Poor communication between the two teams

· Differences in metrics used

· Defaults in processes

· Bad accountability

· Differences in reporting

If companies want to achieve an awesome and substantial improvement in performance, they must unite the two teams to work together. According to Sujan Patel's research, Proper alignment between sales and marketing could lead to a staggering 208% jump in marketing revenue, as well as 38% higher win rates and 36% better customer retention.

Additionally, it is reported that companies with marketing and sales teams that align together get an average of 10% more of their salespeople meet their quotas compared to other companies, according to CSO Insights.

Here is what you can do to get the sales and marketing teams on the same page working together.

1. Contact meeting and letting the two teams interface with each other

Knowing each other is key and important, especially for the people working together and more so for people in different teams that need to work together to succeed. Usually, when people get to know each other, it becomes easy to collaborate and work together compared to when they are strangers. Collaboration makes everyone more effective at their jobs; thus, casual meetings have to be always done as you try to explain to both teams why you are trying to unite them to work together, what you expect them to achieve as a result of working together and collaboration, how it’s going to be implemented. This will give them a sense of value, recognition, feeling positive about what is happening, and excitement about the opportunities.

2. Let both sales and marketing teams understand that they have the same goals

Both sales and marketing teams are less the same, and almost all have similar goals of growing the company through sales. Making sales not only benefits the salespeople but also those in marketing because that’s significant that there is actually brand awareness on the market. If both the sales and marketing teams find common ground to work together, it will be easier for them to find more customers, increase brand awareness and make more profits.

3. Sales leaders and representatives can always give Feedback on Marketing Efforts and vice versa.

Marketers usually do the work of sending out messages to prospective clients who are potential clients already. It’sways difficult for marketers to gauge just how well-received are their marketing messages. For example, some marketing companies send so many irrelevant emails to their clients, which could irritate them. This could lead to the company’s email blockage, meaning that this client won’t be accessed even when he or she is urgently needed. In case such cases are found and feedback is passed back to the marketing team, they can rectify serious issues like this. It’s also important for sales to pass back any other general feedback on how the prospects are receiving the marketing messages to help marketers improve their efforts. If the prospect likes the marketing efforts, they will be much more warmed up and open to making a sale when they meet the sales team, so it’s beneficial all around.

4. Casual meetings for both teams are important.

Causal meetings are important because they help enhance communication which is a vital aspect in all walks of life. Regular meetings help to review what was done very well and what wasn’t achieved depending on the previous meeting's agreed plan ( performance review). They also help resolve any upcoming issues or any problems, more ideas to ease their work and hit their goals are always found in such happening regular meetings. These meetings can be done daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis depending on the company’s structure; however, experts from HubSpot recommend weekly meetings. They even suggest mixing up desks so that salespeople and marketers sit together and better understand what everyone does.

5. Praises should go to both teams

As a matter of fact, everyone wants to be appreciated, and as humans, that is what we love, and it motivates us. Human beings will always want to feel that people acknowledge their work and the efforts they have put in, thus appreciating one department that was directly involved on the ground; for example, the sales team would make the marketing feel less appreciated de-motivated. A success for the sales team is a success for the marketing team and vice-versa. This kind of thinking needs to be reinforced and will help boost productivity as well. Furthermore, credit needs to be given to both the direct and the indirect involvement teams whenever there is a success in the business.

6. Teach one another about the differences

Many people confuse marketing and sales; sometimes, the people involved in marketing and sales don’t understand the difference between the two. People in sales are meant to generate leads and turn them into prospective buyers, talking to the existing potential customers. Building relationships with them keeps the company moving while marketing people are more engaged in brand awareness, handling data, analytics and the future of the project. These two groups are therefore likely to clash if they don’t understand their roles very well; however, discussing with each other about their respective responsibilities and the differences that exist between those two positions would be a good deal to build a stronger and lasting relation for both the sales and marketing teams to work together.

7. Make sure that both teams speak the same language.

As earlier said, communication is an important aspect between marketing and sales teams. Speaking the same language doesn’t mean that all those people in marketing and sales should all speak Luganda; it simply means that the information they give to the clients out there should be uniformly the same because if there are variations, it might cause problems of trust to a company’s products thus losing out on the market. If you are going to get people to work together, the first step would be to ensure that they can understand each other (marketing qualified leads and sales qualified leads) and the company’s product information.

8. Marketing team should inquire from the salespeople about the best marketing content.

People in sales are the ones who are involved in groundwork, and so they know the customer’s preferences and interests; thus, it would make sense to advertise or market something in line with what customers want to hear or see as contrary to something that would sound new into their ears. It becomes easy for the salesmen to pitch a sale if the target customer already has prior knowledge about it, and that would be easing their work. Marketing content is what draws customers and potential buyers. It acts as the first point of contact long before a salesperson steps in. But, it is not only used by the marketing department. Salespeople utilize the marketing content as they go about their business. Marketing content should first be evaluated before it is put out, and these are some of the areas that should be given a core focus.

· What content is available?

· What content should be used for marketing?

· Who should use this content first?

· Where should this content be used?

· Why is this content preferred over the other?

· Will this content gives us the best we expect out of it?

· Finally, is there anything left untouched?

Both teams should evaluate to ensure there is no contradicting information. Some studies have found out that a sales team sometimes creates their own information, and honestly, this would impact your performance on the market.

Sales representatives should help Marketers Better Understand Customers and their needs.

The salespeople spend all their time interacting with the customer, learning what challenges they face and what they want out of your products/services. Therefore, the sales team can give a unique insight into what makes the customer tick from firsthand experience.

Using this information, marketers can create more tailored strategies that target these issues and show how your company can solve them. By targeting their main wants/needs and offering solutions to their challenges at this early stage, you will find that more leads are generated through marketing efforts.

Final thoughts and the last words

When two hands are together, they produce something awesome compared to a single hand; when two teams are united upon the common cause, it’s achieved and in larger amounts. I, therefore, want you to ask yourself, what is a sales team without marketing and what is the marketing team without a sales team? They both compliment each other, and they both need each other thus should always keep the knot tied.

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