So first you must build this connection between sales and marketing. If you forget everything else from this article, I ask you to remember that one thing. By building that connection, you will improve both your bottom line and marketing strategy. The 3 tips we have to offer for sales and marketing management is to concentrate on both lead quality & quantity, nurture leads and share all information.
Concentrate on Lead Quality & Quantity
Hubspot says “your email list deteriorates 25% every year” so you must always be adding new prospects in order to counteract this natural regression. The obvious reason to focus on quantity is because the more leads you bring in, the more money you will make. The only problem is that most of these leads won’t be quality leads.
One of the main areas where marketing and sales disagree is when marketing hands over a lead to them. Depending on your industry and offer, only 5% - 15% of the names you collect on your website will be ready to buy. So sales teams get frustrated when they constantly waste time following up with unqualified leads. This leads to conflict between the departments which leads to a bigger separation. This is when both departments need to come together and distinguish “what is a quality leads?” Without this distinction, it is difficult for your marketing team to segment these clients from sales ready to marketing ready. The quality leads should be handed over to your sales team and the rest of the leads should be placed into lead nurturing campaigns.
Nurture Leads
Like we stated above, most of the leads you gather will not be sales ready. So don’t be a pain in your sales department’s you-know-what. They don’t have the time to chase after leads that are not ready to close, so don’t hand them over. You want to groom these prospects until they are ready for a sales representative to call them.
The reason you need to work with your sales team for creating these lead nurturing programs is 1) they have the best idea of what the customer wants at any point in their sales cycle, 2) they can help segment your lists and 3) they need to know what information you are giving these clients before they make a sales calls with them.
- You need to create a communication schedule of educational items. Sales members are very knowledgeable about the timing of sending educational pieces to leads. You don’t want to be completely self-promotional, instead offer content that focuses on lead pain points. With marketing and sales working together, they can create a timetable for nurturing these leads with timely information.
- Segmenting lists are very important when nurturing leads. You never want to send information that is irrelevant to a lead. For example, let’s say your website sells clothes; would you want to send an email talking about women’s clothing to a male audience? No, unless you position this email towards buying these items for some special female. Either way your email copy would be different between the two different audiences. This was a simple segmentation, but most industries are not that simple. Having both sales and marketing working together to segment these lists will make them more effective.
- A potential lead could easily be turned off by a sales representative calling them and offering them information they have already seen. These leads feel as if they are building a relationship with each email that is sent so don’t ruin the relationship by showing them you haven’t been paying attention. Knowing this information will also give the sales representative a better idea of what the lead is interested in.
Share All Information
There should constantly be an open dialog between sales and marketing to share information. We touched on this reason a little bit in the last section under creating lead nurturing campaigns but it goes farther than that. Marketers need to show sales representatives the information that has been captured from potential leads. This will help lead sales members through their sales call. Give the sales team a better idea of what this lead wants, so they know which buttons to push to make the sale.
Your sales team is on the front line and has heard all the questions potential customers are asking so use this information. These questions are great for creating content. Depending on the depth of the question, it can easily be turned into a blog or a piece of premium content. Creating premium content can be difficult, which is why you need to brainstorm with your sales team to create great content.
Conclusion
Mr. Business Owner, Tear Down This Wall. Don’t allow this separation between your sales and marketing anymore. The benefits of these two departments collaborating are substantial. Improve your marketing strategy and your bottom line today. Start building your bridge between these two departments and make sure you have them concentrate on the lead quality & quantity, lead nurturing tactics and create an atmosphere to encourage communication.
Photo Credit: dsearls via Flickr
WARNING: There is a PROBLEM in business organizations today! Is your marketing and sales on the same team? With all the new sales systems like Salesforce and marketing automation programs, the gap between sales and marketing should be getting smaller instead of increasing. The problem is that most organizations view these departments as stand-alone silos. Instead you should encourage your teams to build a bridge between the two silos. Create an environment that fosters communication. When marketing and sales are aligned on the same goals, then it helps increase the quality of leads which in turn increases profits.
