The politically correct thing to say is that each function in a company is just as critical to the overall goal as the next. But let’s get serious. When it comes down to dollars and cents, marketing and sales are the ones who play the starring role in determining the success (or failure) of your initiative. Because without them, who would develop your brand’s or product’s positioning, build sales tools, and ultimately sell your product?
A recent survey by Corporate Visions on marketing and sales effectiveness gave us some surprising insight into some of the challenges that marketing and sales people face in trying to accomplish their end of the deal.
- 80% of marketing and sales professionals feel their lead generating campaigns are insufficient when it comes to helping them achieve selling success.
- 65% of respondents said their sales teams use less than half of the demand generation content their marketing department produces.
- 60% of companies believe less than half of salespeople are delivering new product messages the way they were intended.
- They need the messages, tools and skills to build the buying vision that compels prospects to make a change from their status quo.
- 50% of respondents said their differentiation strategy is to emphasize how the features and benefits of their products are superior to those of their competitors.
3 Ways to Set Your Marketing & Sales Teams Up for Success
After analyzing the results, I'm wondering if you feel like you’re really getting the most out of your marketing and sales teams? Here are 3 things you can do to set your marketing and sales teams up for success.
- Make sure your lead generating campaigns give buyers a compelling reason to take action.
- Here's a crazy idea - tell your sales team to use the content your marketing team created. You'll avoid mixed messages and keep the focus on getting the action you want from your customer.
- Build strong alignment between your marketing and sales messaging and tools.
- Go beyond typical research to uncover unconsidered needs of your customers that competitors may have missed. That will surprise and delight your customers - and set your products and services apart as uniquely designed for them.
