9 Ways to Grow Revenue by Aligning Sales & Marketing Teams

Intro

It only makes sense that consumer purchasing habits change as the world changes.

And in the last few years alone, change it certainly has — economically, socially, and, of course, digitally (hello, TikTok!).

Today, it’s critical for small- and medium-sized businesses to build a united sales and marketing initiative that gets them in front of the right audiences, presents the best value propositions, and can shift as quickly as trends and demands do.

So, let’s talk about how to do just that.

What Does Sales-Marketing Alignment Look Like?

First, what do we mean when we talk about “united” sales and marketing — aka, sales-marketing alignment?

To summarize, sales-marketing alignment is when coordinated communication, processes, and objectives enable marketing and sales teams to function cohesively.

Why Prioritize Sales-Marketing Alignment?

Aligned sales and marketing teams can work without silos to create more high-impact campaigns and outcomes, which increase sales effectiveness and ultimately boost revenue.

Break Down Limiting Silos

“Siloing” — or separating one business unit from the other — was how things were done. This practice has always left sales and marketing teams disjointed, to the detriment of the consumer and the business.

When the top of the funnel belongs only to marketing and the bottom only to sales, the process is often inelegant and uninformed when a lead is ready to be handed off from marketing to sales. Dropped leads, duplicated communications, and lack of personalization can damage a customer's opinion of your company and cost you money.

A siloed approach to sales and marketing is no longer feasible in the modern world.

To offer a seamless consumer experience, successful businesses have to ensure sales and marketing are working together at every touch point to flawlessly convert contacts and leads to loyal customers.

Take Advantage of Lucrative Account-Based Marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) is the practice of going after key leads within accounts, such as businesses, instead of individuals.

ABM can be a great tool for smaller businesses because it only requires you to spend your resources on a handful of highly-qualified targets at a time instead of trying to reach and convert hundreds of individual consumers.

While ABM is more common in the business-to-business (B2B) space, business-to-consumer (B2C) organizations can also use this method. Just think about what kinds of businesses would be interested in your offering. For example, a coffee shop that roasts and sells its beans to consumers could easily jump to sell them to other local coffee shops.

Or an ecommerce store could branch out into ABM by selling wholesale products to other ecommerce merchants. To reach ABM success, the important thing to know is that alignment between sales and marketing is essential.

Your teams have to agree on what target accounts look like, which leads within those accounts to go after, and the methods for reaching out to and nurturing them.

Image Courtesy: Uberflip

Grow Revenue

By breaking down internal silos, sales and marketing teams are empowered to create campaigns for individuals as well as bigger accounts that are more effective at:

• Outpacing competitors to reach the best consumers
• Convincing those consumers your offering is the best option
• Continuing to nurture customers in a way that leads to retention and referrals

In other words, more campaigns that convert more readily and more often — leading to revenue growth.

Just look at SuperOffice as an example. When they introduced an initiative to align sales and marketing, they saw a 34% increase in revenue from new business after only a few years!

9 Tips for Aligning Sales & Marketing for a Business and Revenue Boost

Here are nine ways to bring together your sales and marketing departments to build a better revenue machine.

Start Communicating Like One Business Unit

First, do everything possible to act like a combined sales and marketing team.

The process starts with regular co-communication, such as meetings and shared collaboration platforms (think Slack, etc.). Both teams must come together for planned meetings where representatives from both sides discuss initiatives, goals, strategies, and more.

You may even draw up an internal marketing-sales service level agreement (SLA). This SLA would outline agreed-upon roles and expectations for each team. An internal SLA like this holds each team accountable and reduces friction by clarifying who’s responsible for which tasks throughout the consumer lifecycle.

Tie SMART, Overarching Goals to Business Objectives

Now that sales and marketing are talking to each other, it’s time to partner on SMART goals.

SMART goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

It shouldn’t be too difficult to align on SMART goals as sales and marketing have the same overarching aim: generating revenue.

The real lift will be validating that all goals adhere to the SMART methodology. And align with any overarching business goals, which will help ensure sales and marketing remain in good standing and operate as profit centers rather than cost centers.

Work Together to Create Buyer Personas

Now, who are sales and marketing working together to target and convert?
Those are your buyers, and it’s critical you agree about who they are.

This need for alignment is where buyer personas come in.

A buyer persona (or user persona, marketing persona, etc.) is a detailed description of an ideal customer that outlines what they do, who they are, and what they need. These “portraits” of buyers should be who sales and marketing have in mind when creating personalized campaigns and messaging.

Learn how to create buyer personas.

Image Courtesy: Marketreach

Adopt a Joint CRM for Process Automation & Transparency

Marketing automation tooling, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software, collects and crunches data to provide a 360-degree perspective of customers. When sales and marketing work within one CRM, the same high-quality information is accessible and up-to-date for both teams.

Adopt a joint CRM that allows both teams to track and manage leads, customer interactions, and follow-up activities so sales and marketing teams can move swiftly and decisively to provide greater value to prospects at every step of their journey.

Feed the Funnel With a Better Prospecting Process

Sales prospecting is about tracking down and pitching the folks most likely to convert into hot leads.

But when sales and marketing don’t align on what makes a great prospect, where to approach them, and how to best pull them into and through the funnel — the funnel becomes a jumbled mess where it’s very hard for salespeople to understand who to prioritize and how to best make contact with them.

This noise is why sales and marketing should align to build a sales prospecting plan that results in a funnel full of great leads and a concrete, repeatable conversion process.

Image Courtesy: Datanyze

Collaborate on a Personalized Email Strategy

Email is a huge element of most successful sales and marketing teams.

But target groups can fall through the cracks when your sales and marketing departments aren't working together on email campaigns. Or, the opposite can happen — groups can be contacted too many times by too many people from your company with no concept of personalization.

Either way, you’re not making a great impression with this disjointed system.

Instead, sales and marketing can come together to make even cold email work.

Prospects who have never heard of you may be less likely to respond favorably to an out-of-the-blue email.

But when sales works with marketing to warm up new prospects with a series of personalized, helpful emails that aren’t focused on making a sale, recipients are more likely to be receptive when sales eventually enters the equation to begin to move them down the funnel.

If you’re unsure where to start, how about at the beginning?

Since so much of the success of an email rides on the very first thing a recipient sees — the subject line — try to use behavioral and demographic information to build email subject lines that feel customized, timely, and hard to ignore.

Image Courtesy: NeverBounce

Listen to Leads and Customers

Once your sales and marketing organizations start to work in sync, it’s time to look at direct customer feedback, sometimes called “voice of the customer data,” to understand the alignment outcomes.

How do you gather such data?

Customer service interactions, sales calls, and chatter on marketing channels are the greatest sources of feedback. These interactions help you learn how people are receiving your new approach to sales and marketing, how impactful your campaigns are, and how personalized messaging is paying off.

When you become a good listener, you can quickly learn how to change your language and where to pivot your offering to better deliver on lead and customer desires — spending less time and money to arrive at revenue.

Recognize and Celebrate Successes as One Team

We all know how good it feels to be recognized for excellence at work. And the boost in morale and motivation that comes after it.

Now, think about how your entire sales and marketing organization could feel — and what that could do for productivity and retention — when you, as a business leader, go out of your way to see and celebrate successes.

Keep an eye on sales and marketing objectives and be ready to give personalized and team-wide recognition when your team reaches small and large goals. Praise is most effective when it’s public, so consider tactics like creating a live leaderboard or putting a gong in the office that your team members can hit after an especially big win!

But remember — one-off celebrations can’t replace a thoughtful compensation strategy!

Build a Feedback Loop for Continuous Improvement

A feedback loop is simply the continual process of collecting feedback, implementing changes based on it, and measuring the impact of those changes — over and over again.

Business owners or sales and marketing leaders should build a feedback loop into their management strategy to ensure feedback regarding lead quality, messaging, campaigns, and overall team alignment is always welcome and actioned.

This feedback loop is a great way to ensure your team feels heard and any alignment efforts and other initiatives are making the intended impact.

How Will You Grow Business Revenue?

Sales-marketing alignment is a beautiful thing for the happiness of your teams, the needs of your clientele, and, of course, the success of your business.

And it’s not too hard to get there, as long as you’re willing to do the work.

Do you want to change how your business performs, or are you looking to take it to new heights? Start with the above tips to pull your most revenue-producing business units into alignment to work more effectively.