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4 Ways to Unify Your Sales and Marketing Teams

Written by GoodData Author  | 

4 Ways to Unify Your Sales and Marketing Teams

The CIO-CMO clash has been well-documented. Numerous thinkpieces, lists of tips, and helpful guides have attempted to align these two key players in digital marketing. Yet, even after we’ve learned the importance of unifying the “digital” side and the marketing department, these togetherness experts have ignored an even older, more important rift--the chasm between sales and marketing.

In an era where marketing has to demonstrate how many sales their activities closed, it would seem that sales and marketing would finally be on the same team. And yet, the data says differently: According to the Aberdeen Group, companies with strong alignment between sales and marketing achieved 20% annual revenue growth. This is compared to a 4% decrease in companies where the two teams were not well-aligned.

Even if the benefits can be astronomical, the feud between the two departments can be deep. Often sales and marketing see each other as competitors--or worse. So instead of trying to align these teams and create Smarketing through some esoteric process, lets use data. Hitting certain metrics (called “hitting the number” to sales and “fulfilling your KPIs” to marketing) is a unifying theme to both departments, so why not let data create Smarketing harmony?

In order to let the data shine through your sales and marketing teams must first agree on some ground rules. Here are my four suggestions to get you started:

1. Create common goals and strategies

​​In order to boost revenue, you need to create a continuous funnel from marketing through sales. This means that the Smarketing team will have unified goals based on unified tactics.

2. Find common target markets and buyer personas

In order to truly build out your unified strategy, you need to determine the target markets and buyer personas that support those goals. Although personas are often considered marketing’s territory, they are needed buy the entire Smarketing team.

3. Determine key metrics and modes of accountability

Finally, we come to the actual data. By using shared metrics across and throughout the funnel, your Smarketing team can keep track of their successes and needs for improvement. But good data is only achieved through great accountability, so your team needs to discuss who is responsible for what.

4. Agree to closed-loop reporting

A closed loop is a system of tracking where all interactions between the buyer and the organization are tracked. This way, the Smarketing team knows exactly who has talked with, tweeted at, or direct content to the buyer throughout the buyer’s journey.

There are many more detailed ways to create harmony in your Smarketing department using specific KPIs and metrics, which are included in Hubspot’s 12 Reports to Connect the Dots Between Sales and Marketing.

Contact us for more information on analytics to unify sales and marketing.

Written by GoodData Author  | 

Go back to Blog's hub Blog   |   tags:  

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