01/27/2021
By Mohona Dutta | Reading time 4 mins
The sales and marketing departments of a small and mid-sized business (SMB) organization are responsible for different parts of the customer journey. Generally speaking, marketing focuses on attracting potential customers, while sales focus on closing the sale. This means marketing and sales are closely linked since your marketing efforts are futile if you don’t generate sales, while the success of your sales depends on your ability to attract leads.
Given that this bond, this indefinable unifying spirit is the very thing that binds two entities together, it seems a rational theory that marketing and sales teams would be naturally and wonderfully linked.
The most successful SMB organizations have marketing and sales teams that view each other as co-partners, each with an important role to play in helping the business grow.
Even though the relationship between sales and marketing teams is closely tied and very interdependent, their perspective towards technology, metrics, and lead assessment can differ greatly and this disparity in approach can sometimes create friction.
So, to mitigate this ‘clash of the Titans’ what can you do? Here are a few tips for healthy synchronicity:
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Harmony in coexistence:
Marketing and sales teams often find themselves at loggerheads, perhaps due to a lack of communication or understanding about how each section can and should seamlessly liaise to drive customer growth and help elevate the ROI (return on investment).
The answer lies in educating both about how their workflows collaborate to create an indispensable synergy for attaining broader organizational objectives. They need to cohabit in the same ecosystem fostering the same objective in mind. Unless the goals aren’t made clear to them, it might be slightly difficult.
Marketing and sales can no longer afford to exist in separate organizational silos. They need to morph into one cohesive team, work in harmony, help and support each other more successfully. And this outcome can be achieved if both parties are on the same page and are communicating constructively and endlessly.
This requires a team approach. This outcome requires a tactical and an organization’s cultural imperative that can only come from the top rung through good leadership and a vision seeped in clarity and definition.
Focused on lead generation:
The disengagement between marketing and sales personnel has a primary kingpin- leads. There are times when marketers become a little upset when it seems like sales aren’t closing the loop on generated leads, while the sales team may feel that those leads fall short of being qualified.
This lack of synchrony leads to a difference in opinions. But when marketing brings sales in, to define a combined lead generation strategy, success becomes attainable. In the interest of refining the lead qualification process, care should be taken to define customers and their journeys.
Creating detailed customer personalities and sharing these with sales will ensure that both sides of the line understand the particulars around what kind of audience is being targeted and why. This activity helps marketing and sales determine how and where to seek leads by developing a thorough understanding of customer beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, including favored set-up, channel, and device.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing has this option of creating a custom-made customer journey which honestly is a boon for a company where the chances of disparity may rise.
Celebrate collaboration
Unity in an SMB segment is a pivotal success factor for both organizational happiness and a cracking ROI. In companies wherein there are multiple hierarchies, it is important to build alliances at all levels, not just among the most senior ones.
When marketing and sales teams have united goals and shared projects, they must be encouraged to work comfortably with one another. The key to collaborative success lies in developing a company-wide philosophy where mutual sharing becomes the norm, offering colleagues across portfolios, departments transparency into both information and workflows.
Having an effective cross-functional working relationship between marketing and sales is critically important to companies in almost every sector. This relationship is almost like a jugular vein in business scenarios, where organizations are now operating in increasingly complex and competitive, and dynamic market environments.
To sum up:
The term ‘smarketing’ can be aptly used here. It’s a conjoined form of sales and marketing. Even though there might be differences in strategies, techniques, approaches, one thing has to be understood here, the unified intention of getting the customer’s loyalty is paramount.
Historically, small and medium-sized businesses have been excellent at customer-centricity but how do you stay close to the customer as you grow? And how do you stay close to the customer in this new age? You can’t without the right technology and collaboration of these two frontiers.
Your teams should be working together to make sure that your company achieves success and continues to grow. Unfortunately, if your marketing and sales teams are isolated from one another, this can become difficult to do. Integrating your marketing and sales teams and aligning your marketing and sales strategies can help get everyone on the same page to achieve unified goals.
We understand how much impact collaboration between the sales and marketing teams can have on a business. Connect with us if you want to know more.
Author’s bio:
Mohona is a Content Writer for the Marketing team in AhaApps since 2019. When she is not busy attending to her creative, technical side, she likes to binge on sitcoms on Netflix. She loves writing poems and reading short stories when she wants to break away from the humdrum of life.
SMB customer’s journey with Microsoft Dynamics 365
Mapping out your buyer’s journey becomes easier with CRM. Read our blog on how Dynamics 365 helps simplify the customer’s journey