If you’ve spent any time working in either sales or marketing then you’ve probably heard the phrase “sales and marketing alignment” before. The problem is that not everyone has the same idea of what it actually means.
For example, some companies think that they can achieve sales and marketing alignment by simply putting the two teams in the same building or even just combining them into one. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. In fact, sales and marketing alignment is at its best when they still function as two independent departments who are working together towards a common goal.
True sales and marketing alignment puts the customer first, because it’s the customer who’s in control in today’s complicated digital landscape. In the same way that sales is no longer about cold calling people until they crack and pay for your product or service, sales and marketing alignment has changed to the point at which it’s all about understanding the customer and going out of your way to make their life easier. If that involves making a sale then all the better.
Why Alignment?
Remember that while sales and marketing alignment is important, the reason you’re doing it is more important still. It’s all about making sure that everyone in your company is focussed on putting the customer first – and that the data you store is integrated enough for every department to benefit from it.
Today’s consumer has more access to information than ever before. The chances are that they’ve already done their research and so simply trying to sell them on the benefits of your company is unlikely to work. Instead, you’ll need to get to know as much as possible about each of your leads so that you can identify pain points and craft content to help them out.
True sales and marketing alignment can often come about through using a content team as a middle ground. The marketing team can capture the leads, the sales team can further qualify them and then the content team can go out of their way to create targeted content for specific sales leads that can later be used to bring in new customers.
Social Media
One other thing to consider is the increasing use of social media, both for sales and for marketing. This has changed the game in a lot of ways, and it’s also forced people to make sure that their sales and marketing teams are working closely together. Otherwise, the brand can appear to “forget” who people are as conversations are passed from one department to another.
This all underscores an overall trend in which sales and marketing have been forced to become less aggressive. In today’s digital marketing space, true sales and marketing alignment just looks like a connected company which shares its data between departments and which goes out of its way to help its customers, even if that ultimately means sacrificing a sale for the greater good.
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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.