Generating leads consistently is only work half done. In the traditional marketing strategy, the two departments – sales and marketing working independently of each other might have worked because this alignment was tedious. However, with B2B marketing shifting to account-based marketing, aligning sales and marketing have become one of the most important factors to ensure consistent and efficient sales funnel optimization.
According to Blend, highly aligned organizations can achieve 38% lead to sales conversion rates while misaligned organizations, meanwhile, fail to follow up on 50% of marketing leads, and 79% of them never turn into sales.
What happens when sales and marketing are not in sync?
Marketing and sales departments often set their strategies, and goals, separately from each other. This creates tension amongst the personnel at the very basic level and potential revenue loss on the extreme. In fact, sales and marketing misalignment is the number one reason why an organization’s annual revenue stagnates or, worse, declines.
One of the most common proofs of this misalignment is when you hear your sales reps complaining about the lead quality and in return, marketing reps accusing sales of poor follow-up. This means you are wasting your time and budget without understanding the underlying problem.
Why should aligning sales and marketing be your top priority?
The traditional buyer journey is seeing a drastic change due to the easy availability of information online. Potential buyers now prefer scouting for the information online rather than engaging with salespeople. This changing buyer behavior has driven a shift in sales and marketing strategies at all levels of the funnel.
This demands that both the departments need to be ready to respond to the leads at any stage, any time, and of course, satisfactorily.
According to their CMO’s Agenda report, Aberdeen Group found that by effectively lining up sales and marketing, you can:
- Generate 32% higher revenue
- Retain 36% more customers
- Achieve 38% higher win rates
When sales and marketing are in alignment, they know more and better, which in turn will reflect in the overall revenue numbers. Not only that, but it can also:
- Streamline fragmented or distorted customer journey
- Make segmentation and nurturing efficient
- Improve the quality of the leads for sales to follow
- Give insights into which leads to market to
- Show potential of leads turning into opportunities and then to closures
- Offer insights into the performance of sources and content
- Share historical data about leads at different stages
Conclusion
Sales and marketing alignment is so vital now that there is a new term for it – Smarketing. HubSpot defines Smarketing as “an alignment between your sales and marketing teams created through frequent and direct communication between the two”. Syncing sales and marketing will help you uncover unique insights into the sales process, optimize your sales and marketing strategies, close better deals faster, and boost up revenues.
Ready to align your sales and marketing teams? With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing, you can start now. Contact us to learn how you can bring sales and marketing together at your organization.