How many of you have had experience of the great stand-off between your sales and marketing teams? Rather than regarding the whole process as being symbiotic, one side will tout itself as being way more important than the other. Three Ways to Bring Marketing and Sales Together stipulates three key areas where you can bridge any divide that exists:
#1 Articulate that each group has different goals.
While both marketing and sales want common outcomes—more sales, market share and customers—the timetables and metrics they rely on are very different. Marketing hopes to develop a brand over an extended period of time; sales tries to develop near-term revenue based on current demand.#2 Stay on the same page—and “on brand.”
The generation, and passing along, of leads probably creates the biggest gap between sales and marketing. Marketing develops its materials based on its perceived perfect prospect, but sales may simply ignore both the prospect and brand image that marketing worked hard to create to close a deal.#3 Respect the differences, but realize they’re working at the same “joint.”
Sales personnel greet the customer and serve the burger; marketing folks get the prospect in the joint in the first place. Both are fundamental activities to a successful business, but are managed by people with often very contrasting disciplines, personalities and even educational backgrounds. Sales needs more time to sell and negotiate; marketing seeks more opportunity to analyze and be creative with their marketing strategies—and they both should be paid accordingly.
This is very similar to what Jeff James of Microsoft will be talking about in his session: Execution for ROI: Aligning the Sales & Marketing Planets.
The session synopsis is as follows:
Marketing remains one of the least disciplined organizations within many companies, and CEO’s aren’t standing for it any longer. It’s no longer acceptable to put your finger to the wind, pray the CFO approves your budget, and then hope something good happens.
This session will cover how to
* Understand your marketing objectives so campaigns can be built to achieve them
* Segment and prioritize your most influential customers, your highest potential prospects and other key customer groupings so marketing can be more targeted
* Come to agreement with your top sales executive on what the definition of a quality lead really is
* Measure the impact of marketing that is not directly revenue related such as brand, relationship, and customer loyalty
* Measure the impact or contribution of your marketing investment across various communication channels (web, TV, radio, direct mail, etc.)Anyone having a hard time justifying their marketing budget requests with their CFO, or feeling the heat from their VP of Sales regarding the quality of leads, should attend this session.
So, you’d better look sharp if you’re particularly interested in Jeff’s topic as he’s first up on Thursday morning.
Recent Comments