It’s a funny term no doubt but integrating Sales and Marketing in order to create one story for the entire B2B buyers journey has never been so important.
Aligning sales and marketing is critical to meeting yearly sales and business objectives. According to a report by Aberdeen Research, companies that are aligning marketing and sales teams experience an average of 32% growth in annual revenue, compared to a 7% decline among their competitors who’s sales and marketing teams are not aligned. Alignment means many things: developing a common vernacular of success metrics and definitions, sharing goals with common purpose, and integrating common technologies and uniformed processes.
Marketing is about qualified lead generation. But those qualified leads will become stale if a sales team is not following up with them. According to the publication The B2B Lead, sales reps ignore over 50% of marketing leads because they did not attract those leads themselves.
One of the most difficult steps in the sales process is qualifying leads from the marking teams. This is even more difficult when salespeople lack vital information about those leads. But when marketing shares buyer insights and personas with sales, reps can more effectively tailor an approach to the lead. The more personalized the sales approach, the more likely the lead is to convert and also become a long-term, loyal customer.
"Companies with ‘dynamic, adaptable sales and marketing processes’ report an average of 10% more effective sales teams compared to other companies."
Alignment can help marketing team’s effectiveness too. Aligning sales and marketing generated 208% more revenue from marketing, according to MarketingProfs. By implementing standardized New Lead Notifications or engaging more closely with the Sales Team’s CRM, marketing can illustrate the benefits of cross department team work. When sales go up everyone wins.
IDC found that that SMarketing misalignment translates into 10% in lost revenue annually. That’s $100 million for a billion-dollar company. There is little double that failing to align sales and marketing is hindering a B2B company’s revenue potential.
