Marketing and sales serve one purpose: Building Revenue. But both departments have two widely differing approaches towards the same goal. Studies show that 70% of the content created for sales by marketing is never used by sales reps but at the same time 65% of buyers find value in discussing their issues or hesitations with salespeople!

So, if marketing and sales collaborate, potential buyer issues can be addressed in content generated by marketing and sales reps will have better, more personalised material to work with as well. This will result in higher brand value and revenues.

The Importance of Sales and Marketing Alignment

Most marketing teams work hard at creating content for the sales teams by way of marketing collaterals, presentations, brochures etc. But around 70% of this content is not utilised by the sales team at all.

That means that as much as 12% of the entire marketing budget can be going to waste!

Why is this happening?

“ A recent CSO Insights study revealed that 51% of marketers are not satisfied with the level of communication between the teams and 53% of sales professionals are not pleased with marketing’s support.”

This is largely because marketers lack the tools to gather feedback from sales and measure what content works, what doesn’t, and what tends to get altered by sales reps.

For the sales team sorting through all available content and customizing it for potential customers in real time isn’t feasible.
Another problem is that often the sales team doesn’t know which content to use or where to find it.
Thus, this vicious cycle of marketers creating content that goes unused by sales is frustrating for both teams.

How can you turn this around? What should your Sales and Brand/Marketing Team be doing TOGETHER to boost sales revenue?

When sales and marketing work together, metrics soar, costs decrease, and life cycles are more concise. In fact, companies with closely aligned sales and marketing functions have 36% higher customer retention rates.

Here are a few ideas which can get your marketing and sales team buzzing together.

Collaborate on sales content creation

Both sales and marketing need to work together to create targeted content that speaks directly to customers. Both teams must discuss primary buyer objections and how the sales team typically overcomes them.

It is also essential for the marketing team to understand the different stages in the sales team’s buying process to create relevant sales focussed marketing content.

For e.g. the Sales team may share that potential clients always ask: ‘How are you different?’

So, in return, the marketing team can create an article to address relevant questions which can be used by the sales team in their calls and emails.

As per CSO Insights 32% of a sales rep’s time is spent looking for or creating sales content.

Thus, collaborating with the sales team and creating content that they can use in their proposals and throughout the selling process is a major factor in an outstanding sales strategy.

Co-create content which is buyer-centric

Most marketing material is created in a product-centric way. What sales really need is buyer-centric content — content that communicates value matched to the needs of specific customer personas. Buyers need sales reps to help them understand how to solve a pragmatic business problem or exploit an opportunity, not just explain Feature A and Feature B.

By creating different buyer profiles and mapping their challenges and potential solutions, marketing would be able to create content which is relevant to the rep and resonate with the buyer.

Meet regularly to analyse what’s working and what’s not

It’s all good to strategize and map plans together but it is extremely crucial to map the success of your marketing plan from time to time to judge which elements are working and which are not.

A good idea would be to use a collaborative spreadsheet where sales reps can drop in feedback from prospects, add content they feel is missing etc.

Make content easily accessible to sales

The Sales team should be able to access all information from wherever they are which means material should be on the cloud. Also, it might help to have tags and a folder structure for content that makes it effortless for reps to find what they need, for each buyer persona at each level of the sales funnel.

Marketing can’t produce content to support thousands of different usage scenarios, but they can provide a library of content broken down – e.g., by industry or product feature or pain point — as well as guidance, a general overview of the story, and branding compliance instruction.

Using sales email templates that allow for personalization with marketing-approved key messaging in the email body can also help ensure consistency.

Establish and maintain company culture

Both departments need to work symbiotically to grow the company. This might require some icebreaking by way of company picnics, combined projects or programs etc.

Thus, it is important for both marketing and sales to function as one team. Both departments are not rivals but two forces working towards the same goal.

Rebrand Advisory is a B2B branding agency with an integrated approach towards brand strategy and sales communication. At RBA, we help clients build brand awareness, enhance credibility and drive new business.

Why B2B firms need Sales and Brand alignment to convert leads