It’s common in organisations to find a divide between sales and marketing. Objectives and goals often conflict between these functions. Marketing want to generate as many leads as possible and Sales will only follow up the ones that they believe are likely to convert.
Follow these simple steps to achieve:
- 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost
- An increase in the number of leads accepted by Sales
- 10% or greater increase in revenue in 6-9 months
Whether they like it or not, Sales and Marketing need each other. You could have a fantastic Marketing team generating high quality leads, but with no-one to follow-up the leads and close the sale the role of marketing is pointless, and vice versa.
One very simple way to ensure that Sales and Marketing are incentivised to work better together is by setting joint objectives based on return on investment. This will ensure that marketing generate the right kind of leads that give the sales team the best chance of closing the sale.
Traditionally a lead is generated by marketing and passed straight to sales for follow-up. This process no longer works due to prospects taking longer to research potential suppliers before engaging in a conversation with a sales person.
Up to 80% of leads are rejected by Sales because they are not ready to make a purchase.
Businesses that categorise their prospects into 2 separate pots (marketing qualified and sales qualified) and deal with them differently have more success and fewer rejected leads.
Prospects that have a requirement for your products or services
Sales Qualified Leads
Prospects that have a requirement for your products or services and are ready to speak with a sales person
Think about the attributes that your valuable customers have; what industry are they in, what is the typical company size, what job role do they carry out…?
This helps both teams be more successful:
- The marketing team can target their ideal buyer with the right content and messages.
- As a result the leads generated should be higher quality and result in an increase in your sales conversion rate.
To improve the process even further and make life easier for both the Marketing and Sales teams, investing in marketing software that integrates with your CRM makes sense. Marketing Automation platforms allow for Marketing to nurture leads over a period of time, set rules for defining when a prospect is sales qualified and automatically send alerts to the relevant sales person via your CRM.
Prospects that reach sales but who are not ready to buy can be recycled back to marketing so they are not wasted.
This smart and seamless lead management will improve your conversion rate and ROI.
Prospects have a perception of your business from the branding, marketing communications and website content. These experiences should be consistent and then supported and enhanced by the salesperson.
To ensure consistency throughout the prospects journey, Sales and Marketing should meet regularly to share information on marketing campaigns, lead quality and conversion rates.
This article first appeared on the Beanstalk Marketing blog
