How to Align Marketing and Sales for More Revenue

Did you know that the lack of alignment between sales and marketing teams is costing businesses more than a trillion dollars per year?

Sales and marketing misalignment is one of the major reasons why a company’s annual revenue stagnates or even declines. It causes 60-70% of B2B content to go to waste and close to 75% of marketing leads never convert into a sale.  

So it’s safe to say that aligning your sales and marketing teams will increase your business’ revenue.  

Having a united effort between teams can help ensure more successful campaigns and leads. This, in turn, can potentially generate higher revenues in the long term and boost your business growth.  

In this article, the best digital marketing agency in Miami will give you tips on how to successfully align both your marketing and sales teams for more revenue. But before that, let’s first discuss the importance of aligning your sales and marketing teams.

Importance of Sales and Marketing Alignment

Traditionally, the role of marketers in the B2B lead generation process was directed towards finding opportunities to give to the sales team.  

But as the advancement of technology, marketing channels, and buying behaviors changed, marketers have become increasingly data-driven.  

The buyer's journey is no longer linear, so marketers need to integrate sales function when planning and implementing successful marketing campaigns.  

Your sales and marketing teams have the same goals, but they accomplish them very differently.

Despite these differences, you need to ensure that the teams are aligned. They should work hand in hand, communicate frequently, and communicate a unified message to customers.  

Strong alignment results in the following benefits:

• Promotes healthy and cooperative culture.  
• Drives a 208% growth in marketing-generated revenue.
• 36% higher customer retention rates.  

• 38% higher sales win rates.  
• Streamlines the buying process, which improves buyer experience.  

4 Practical Tips on How to Align Your Marketing and Sales Team Successfully

As the leading digital marketing agency in Miami, trust us when we say that the path to uniting your marketing and sales is not always smooth and straightforward.  

But there are things you can do to overcome common obstacles and achieve better alignment.  

1. Align Your Objectives

Your sales and marketing team should have the same goals. And, they should rely on each other to achieve them.  

The problem, however, is that their roles might overlap so it’s critical to clearly define what’s expected of them so they know.  

To sync up, the best digital marketing agency in Miami suggests that you consider scheduling weekly meetings just to keep track of their shared goals.  

Make sure both teams communicate freely about the number of leads they've generated to date, the problems they encountered with closing deals, and how many they've closed.  

Ensuring both teams are on the same page will allow them to create strategies and plan content that will be most effective at each stage of the buying process.  

2. Communicate Frequently

One of the most common challenges when it comes to sales and marketing alignment is communication, but this can easily be solved.  

Besides reviewing goals, make sure both your marketing and sales teams communicate regularly about their strategies. Both teams should meet frequently to track performance, discuss feedback, and build a solid team rapport.  

Here are the different ways your sales and marketing teams can facilitate constant communication:

• Run onboarding smarketing (sales + marketing) meetings. Explain how marketers will be supporting the sales team and allow them to get to know each other.  
• Let your marketing team join sales meetings. During the meeting, they can discuss content ideas together and know more about sales goals and quotas.  
• Arrange regular monthly meetings for your sales and marketing managers. This will allow them to analyze metrics, set shared goals, and discuss barriers for the incoming month.  
• Have casual meetings to celebrate joint wins. It's a great way for both teams to spend time outside a traditional work environment and build deeper connections with each other. This can ultimately impact their dynamic.  

3. Define Terms

Both your sales and marketing teams should be speaking the same language.  

They’re going to be sharing the same information and communicating regularly, so they need to be on the same page with the terminologies.  

Creating a set of definitions early on will prevent any misunderstandings and help eliminate any confusion.  

4. Equip Both Teams with The Right Tools

Sales Enablement Platforms can create a major boost on your alignment. They provide visibility across the sales content lifecycle, which allows both teams to organize, analyze assets, and examine team wins.  

They also provide all the information, processes, and content that your sales and marketing staff would need to engage with prospective buyers and convert them.  

5 Common Sales and Marketing Misalignment Problems and How Aligning Them Can Fix It

The buyer’s journey is no longer linear because buyer behavior has changed. As a result, the ‘marketing first, sales next” strategy no longer works today.  

80% of B2B buyers have already made a purchase decision before reaching out to a sales representative. 68% of buyers prefer to research and communicate with your team online. 90% of B2B buyers no longer answer cold calls.  

Fortunately, smarketing can help fix problems caused by a complex buyer’s journey.  

Problem 1: Poor Lead Generation

• 79% of marketing leads don’t convert into sales because of poor lead nurturing.  
• Only 56% of B2B organizations verify leads before passing them to sales.  
• 61% of B2B marketers only touch 27% of all the sales marketers send directly to them.  

By aligning your sales and marketing, you can agree on an ideal customer persona and lead qualification algorithm. This will help both teams understand who their ideal customers are, how to engage them, and take advantage of sales opportunities.  

As the leading digital marketing agency in Miami, we know from experience that when you have an idea of who you're after, it'll be easier for both teams to create content and set strategies that will improve lead generation.  

Problem 2: Lack of Content Utilization

Another major problem related to marketing and sales misalignment is that 60-70% of B2B content created by marketers is never used by the sales team.  

When the sales team makes very little or no effort to contribute to the content created and developed by marketers, these pieces won’t be able to meet their needs.  

By aligning your sales and marketing actions, your marketing team will get enough input shared from sales about who their target customers are and their preferences.  

As a result, the marketing team can create content that resonates and is better able to convert leads. These pieces can now help the sales team achieve its goals.  

Problem 3: Failing to Demonstrate a Clear Marketing ROI

It’s difficult to measure the true value of your marketing efforts without data from both the sales and marketing systems to measure.  

By unifying processes and data, it’ll be easier to track and measure results. There’s also more transparency about how your company is performing.  

Problem 4: Inefficient Workflows

When your sales and marketing teams operate separately from each other, it’s difficult to streamline processes and data that both teams may need to create a unified effort in generating more leads and converting them into sales.  

So, instead of sales logging into one system and marketing into another, your go-to digital marketing company in Miami suggests that both teams should use the same tools and dashboards to simplify workflows.  

This will allow them to access all customer data and metrics, which makes it easier to analyze them and find ways to speed up your sales cycle.  

Problem 5: Failure to Encourage Customers to Stay Loyal

If your marketing says one thing to your customers and the sales team says another, it’s going to create confusion and ultimately drive them away.  

By syncing your sales and marketing, you can boost your retention rates by up to 36%. Studies show that increasing your customer retention rates by just 5% can lead to profit growth of up to 95%.  

Retaining customers is the key to achieving business growth!

Looking for The Best Digital Marketing Agency in Miami?

Ensuring that your sales and marketing teams are aligned is crucial to your business' success.  

But true alignment doesn't happen overnight. It's an ongoing process that requires the entire organization's commitment to continuous collaboration and unification.  

With the right strategies and tools, you can sync both teams successfully and achieve true alignment.  

Digital Resource is the best digital marketing agency in Miami that can help your organization sync up your sales and marketing efforts.  

Through a well-thought-out digital and content marketing strategy, you can put out pieces that convert and nurture leads into customers. Want to get an idea of how we can make this possible for you? Contact us today!  

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