Sales and marketing belong together!

Sales and marketing both pursue the same goal: safeguarding the company and growth of the company.

Sales is a direct process in which the salesperson talks to the customer and steers him or her towards a purchase. This can be done in person, by phone or via a digital communication medium such as e-mail or even social media. The process can be very lengthy and can involve several conversations in which the salesperson is informed about the customer and their problems and helps them understand how the product on offer can solve them.

It can also be a very short process consisting of a single conversation in which the salesperson sets the terms of the deal and handles the sale.

Marketing is a holistic process aimed at increasing the awareness of a brand or product for the entire end user.

The methods, tactics and channels used by the marketing department are many and varied. Digital channels would be one example:

content marketing
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
e-mail marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)

Marketing is all about generating «leads» that sales should track and convert into customers. Unfortunately, the relationship between the two departments often ends here.

The gap between marketing and sales can be bridged by improving the following points:

  • Communication between departments
  • faulty processes
  • Measured variables due to different metrics
  • Lack of reliable information on key customers
  • Reporting challenge
  • Differing data on prospective customers and customers
  • Lack of accountability on both sides

What happens when sales and marketing work together?

With good cooperation between sales and marketing, key performance indicators will improve significantly. Sales cycles will be shorter, market entry costs will decrease and cost of sales will be lower. Those companies that report a strong alignment between sales and marketing generate more leads and close more leads.

Unfortunately, too many companies let marketing and sales operate as completely independent units.

How can they work together effectively?

First things first: You need to inform yourself about your plans. A personal meeting with each member of both the sales and marketing teams is the best and most effective way to bring everyone up to speed. Not to mention the valuable ideas and suggestions that everyone has to share.

That is the crux of the matter. Employees must understand what they are doing and why they are doing it.

Explaining what is to be achieved and why and what processes are being implemented to support this collaboration is a good start.

In this context, it is important to define the leads and be clear about how to generate the leads, convert them into customers and keep your customers.

This can be done automatically with digital marketing, which is consistently accompanied by telephone acquisition. Telemarketing is a marketing measure that links marketing activities well with sales activities and brings transparency.