In any company, the sales and marketing teams are the most important players when it comes to getting more customers and closing more deals. So, it’s important to ensure both teams can work together to successfully push customers through the sales funnel.

However, the sad reality is that many marketing and sales teams fail to maintain a healthy relationship and often have communication problems.

And guess what? This doesn’t benefit anyone.

So what’s the solution? 

Companies need to bridge the gap between their marketing and sales teams. Good communication between these two entities will help create a powerful brand and ultimately boost your company’s revenue.

 Here are 4 ways to better connect your marketing and sales teams: 

1. Listen in on Calls

Marketing teams should regularly listen in on sales calls. This way, marketing can get a better sense of what problems prospects are dealing with. This will make it easier for the marketing team to tailor their campaigns to the specific prospect and customer needs. 

More specifically, marketing can listen in on demo calls and qualifying calls. Throughout both, leads are likely to talk about their current situation, what problems they need to solve, and what features they’d like to see in a solution- all of these are great insights for marketing campaigns. 

As for how often this should be done, it’s best to have marketing listen in once every quarter or when there is a specific campaign that needs to be monitored.

2. Create a Council

Another way to ensure constant communication is by creating a council that represents both departments. The council can comprise of at least 3 sales members who are matched up to a corresponding number of marketing representatives. They can meet several times a year to discuss the efforts of both departments.

The duties of the council can include:

• Providing product development feedback
• Analyzing lead generation campaigns
• Monitoring effectiveness of sales
• Identifying new marketing goals

Creating a council would allow sales and marketing to pinpoint exactly what is and isn’t working on both ends. Are marketing efforts making it easier for the people over at sales? Is sales making proper use of what’s given to them by marketing? 

Marketing and sales rely heavily on each other, so it’s not uncommon for one team to spot a deficiency in the other’s strategy. With a council, each team can be transparent about these issues and identify what can be improved to make things easier and more productive for everyone. 

Not only does this improve sales and marketing processes, but it further opens up opportunities for both departments to collaborate and fix these issues together. 

3. Understand Responsibilities

Does your marketing team understand the roles of the sales team? Can the same be said vice versa? Often times, a poor understanding of the roles in your company can lead to finger pointing. For example, sales may claim that marketing isn’t doing something they’re supposed to be doing, while marketing may claim that it’s the responsibility of sales.

Whatever it may be, this blaming leads to a toxic work environment and damages the relationship between marketing and sales. Therefore, it is important to clearly lay out all the duties each team must perform. 

This can be done by clarifying:

• KPIs- Setting clear KPIs will help each team better understand what they are responsible for. For example, if the sales team’s KPI is “number of demo calls held per month”, sales will know that it is their responsibility to get leads on demo calls, not marketing’s. 

• Goals- Establishing goals for each department will also help your sales and marketing teams understand what duties they should focus on. Setting goals can also reduce friction if teams are encouraged to reach end goals rather than carry out specific responsibilities. 

If sales and marketing teams share certain KPIs or goals, don’t be afraid to let them collaborate. Allowing both departments to work together can optimize your marketing and sales practices and improve the overall performance of both departments.

4. Create More Targeted Content 

Sales teams are always looking for better leads, because for them, it’s all about quality over quantity. They could have millions of leads to work with, but if none of them actually need what they’re selling, no deals will ever be made. 

Unfortunately, sales has little to no control over what leads they work with. The quality of leads that are passed on to sales all lie in the hands of marketing. 

So, how can marketing provide sales with the high potential leads they so desperately need?  

A great way of doing this is by improving content creation. 

Specifically, marketing should focus on creating targeted content that is highly relevant to prospects’ wants and needs. Addressing common pain points within marketing content will help sales get better qualified leads.

Marketing can create content that:

• Educates readers on your product 
• Addresses common customer pain points 
• Targets specific buyer personas 

This will ensure that when leads reach the sales team, they will already be qualified and educated on what your product can do for them. Ultimately, sales will be left with high quality, high potential prospects that are easy to work with and very likely to turn into customers. 

Conclusion

Creating a bridge between sales and marketing should be a top priority for your company since consistent and effective communication between both teams will help turn your leads into paying customers.

Author Bio: Sandra is a professional writer and one of the owners of elizabethanauthors.org. She has been in the profession for over fifteen years and is familiar with all sorts of formal and academic writings and styles.

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