10 Steps to Better Marketing and Sales Alignment

Aligning the goals of sales and marketing is crucial to business growth. By taking steps to share objectives, understand the customer journey, agree on measures of success and continually communicate about what success means to the organization, sales and marketing can improve the overall process.

Here are 10 steps to better marketing and sales alignment:

1. Open Communication. Encourage open and frequent communication between marketing and sales teams. Schedule regular meetings to discuss upcoming needs, ongoing campaigns, lead quality, customer and partner feedback, and any challenges faced by either team. This helps build rapport and fosters a collaborative environment.
2. Joint Strategy and Planning Sessions. Closely tied to the above, strategy and planning sessions should involve both the marketing and sales teams, but be focus on near and long term objectives that will impact the business. These meetings may include discussions around upcoming product launches, a shift in market dynamics, new competition, geographic or demographic opportunities, etc.
3. Agree on Lead Definitions. Clearly define what constitutes a market qualified lead (MQL – someone interested in your product/solution) and sales qualified lead (SQL – someone who intends to buy) and ensure both teams agree on these definitions. This alignment prevents any confusion and ensures a smooth handoff of leads from marketing to sales.
4. Create Service Level Agreements. Develop service level agreements (SLAs) between marketing and sales. For instance, marketing might commit to delivering a certain number of leads each month, while sales commits to following up on those leads within a specified timeframe.
5. Share and Agree Upon Customer Personas and Their Journeys. Develop customer personas and journey maps collaboratively. Understanding the types of buyers, their needs, pain points, and behavior helps both teams create targeted campaigns and personalized sales approaches. How those buyers find your products/services and make purchase decisions will further define your marketing approach.
6. Leverage Marketing Automation. Implement a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and marketing automation platform that both teams can access. This centralizes data and allows for better lead tracking, lead scoring, and customer engagement.
7. Agree on Measures. Define shared objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) that both marketing and sales teams can work towards. Pay special attention to the return on marketing investment (ROI). The amount of sales revenue generated from marketing spend is critical to determining bottom line success. Big ROI should earn marketing bigger budgets.
8. Create a Feedback System. Create a closed-loop feedback system where sales provides feedback to marketing about the lead quality and customer interactions. This feedback loop helps marketing fine-tune their strategies and content to better meet the needs of potential customers.
9. Cross-Train Your Teams. Arrange training sessions and workshops that allow team members from both marketing and sales to understand each other’s roles, challenges, and best practices. This builds empathy and enhances cooperation.
10. Celebrate! When marketing and sales achieve shared goals together, celebrate the success as a united team. Recognize and reward individuals from both departments who contribute to the overall success.

With a willingness to collaborate and create a shared model of success, sales and marketing can both take credit for organizational growth.