B2B marketing and sales, while often thought of as one and the same entity by many outside of an organization, are not always thought of as one and the same entity within the organization itself.
The problem, quite simply, is that B2B Marketing often sees its role as simply generating as many leads as possible, and then handing them off to B2B Sales. And B2B Sales sees its role as simply closing the deal.
That creates two different silos – marketing and sales – that rarely come together except for that hand-off of leads. It means that B2B Marketing may have information, data and insights that it doesn’t share with the B2B Sales team and, conversely, the B2B Sales team may have important insights about what works and what doesn’t, but fails to share them with the B2B marketing team.
That’s not just anecdotal evidence. There’s also statistical evidence to bear that out – a recent report from the Marketing Advisory Network, which interviewed over 100 sales and marketing professionals, highlights the fact that B2B marketing and sales often don’t talk to each other. B2B Marketing and Sales professionals were asked three simple questions:
Does B2B Sales follow-up on 95% or more of all B2B Marketing leads?
Is B2B Marketing doing a good job of supporting B2B Sales?
Is the B2B Sales team rewarded for supporting B2B marketing objectives?
No surprises what the answers were here.
While 50% of B2B Sales teams thought they followed up on 95% or more of all leads, only 20% of B2B Marketing teams thought they did. And 58% of all B2B sales professionals thought they were rewarded for supporting B2B marketing objectives, while only 18% of B2B marketing professionals thought they were. That’s a big disconnect.
The only surprise, perhaps, was the answer to question #2. Here, 51% of B2B Sales professionals actually thought B2B marketing was doing a good job of supporting the sales team, while only 20% of B2B Marketing professionals thought they were doing a good job. Maybe the marketing team was being modest about what they do all day, but it’s clear that not enough is being done to support the sales team after the initial hand-off.
But look at what can happen when B2B Marketing and B2B Sales actually talk to each other. More of the sales leads get followed up on, the sales team gets more support from the marketing team to help close the deal, and the marketing team gets more support from the sales team. In short, it becomes one big happy corporate family, where both marketing and sales are working together as part of
one larger corporate objective to drive revenue and profitability.
That’s one of the keys to a winning B2B marketing strategy – getting sales and marketing to talk to each other. If they are aligned on the same objectives, and have the same performance metrics, then they are going to do a better job of finding new leads and then converting those leads into sales!
Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.