sales and marketing alignment

Sales is ultimately successful only with marketing’s help — and vice a versa



Sales and marketing alignment remains a pervasive issue derailing selling organizations.

According to HubSpot research, one in four companies indicate their sales and marketing teams are either “misaligned” or “rarely aligned.” And this misalignment is costing B2B companies 10% or more of lost revenue annually.

Sales and Marketing Intersections

It may seem like sales and marketing are disparate departments, but in fact they should be considered more akin to offensive and defensive players on the same team.

  • Marketing can defend and uphold the brand sales is carrying toward the goal.
  • Marketing can block any unqualified prospects from sales’ zone.
  • Marketing can nurture quality leads and prepare sales’ buyers at every stage of the buying journey.
  • Marketing can keep the buyer from reaching the competitors’ content by gaining an unfair share™ of the market that sales can reinforce and run with.

When Sales and Marketing Are Playing on Different Sides

While effective sales and marketing alignment can reap tremendous awards for all involved, more often than not, we see these departments choosing to scrimmage one another rather than join forces.

Where does the disconnect come into play?

Yes, marketing can provide great assists and defense to a sales strategy, but they often lose their status in the eyes of sales when they create materials that are missing the mark for the key messaging or actual usability in the field. Marketing’s skills do not always translate into effective strategy, and this is especially true if they are blindly designing or writing brochures and banner ads without any inkling as to the end purpose, no matter how well-crafted.

Think of it like this: When sales is failing, more money is not invested into marketing. And some organizations in the past have realized sustainable revenue performance with no or little marketing help. Even back to our analogy, the defensive team is not scoring the goals, rather assisting the offense from doing so and keeping the competition from winning instead.

Yet, the potential of a marketing and sales fueled organization is powerful. According to Marketo and Reachforce research, sales and marketing alignment can help businesses become 67% better at closing deals.

And having compelling, consistent messaging and materials support for the early buying journey and beyond after salespeople introductions can set your B2B selling organization apart from others, especially in today’s digital world.

The first step is to align your teams to the same goals, strategies and frameworks.

Struggling with sales and marketing alignment? Learn more about how our solution marketing and sales enablement support has helped others like you.

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