Boost your B2B

With Marketing Insight

By Erica Rascón on Jun 27, 2016 in Marketing

By now, you likely know that collaboration between marketing and sales is necessary to achieve and exceed growth goals.  What you might not know is that without that unified approach, companies can lose 10 percent of revenue each year. For most businesses, the challenge is figuring out how to make interdepartmental teamwork effective.

Organizations must begin with an equal playing field, where sales and marketing both receive support from upper management. Currently, that is not the case in many organizations.

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and Business Marketing Association surveyed 237 B2B marketers for greater insights on workplace conditions. Only 42 percent of marketing respondents are consistently included at the senior management table. An eye-opening 37 percent expressed that senior management offered a “strong endorsement” of their efforts.

Marketing and sales share a symbiotic relationship. Once leadership acknowledges their interdependence, both departments can work together to bolster growth.

Esther Bonardi, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing at Yardi, offers these insights into bringing sales and marketing into a blissful and productive union:

1. Partnership drives growth. “The goal of marketing is ultimately to drive qualified leads that are ‘sales ready,’” begins Bonardi (pictured, right). “Accomplishing this requires a lot of communication between sales and marketing.  All too often, it can be hard for one group to gain the attention of the other in order to effectively work together on a strategic plan.  A lack of meaningful communication is the greatest obstacle to this success.”

The key to purposeful communication is exchanging resources and insights, sharing the same objectives, and consistency. “It is important for sales leaders to put time on their calendars to plan and strategize with their marketing counterparts, and to keep these appointments as if they were appointments with a key client,” says Bonardi.

“Without working closely and collaboratively, it’s easy for marketing promotion to become less targeted and less in line with the goals of the sales team.  However, if marketing and sales meet regularly and religiously to plan and strategize together, the two will remain in lock step in a way that drives the right kind of leads.  Don’t let these meetings take a back seat.”

2. Focus on people, not products. About 35 percent of respondents admit that senior management fixates on product and price rather than insights into the customer, reveals the ANA survey.

Focusing on the buyer creates a steadier path to sales. “Today, about 80 percent of the B2B buyer’s journey happens before they are engaged with a sales rep,” explains Bonardi. “We need to be certain we are focusing our marketing on the things that matter most to that buyer rather than simply the things we believe are most important.  When we do that, we end up with qualified leads who want our products and services.  At that point, the time spent closing that customer is significantly reduced.”

“People have always made buying decisions based on what’s in it for them,” Bonardi continues. “As marketers learn to better communicate the value of features in their marketing messaging—and the impact that products could have on the buyer– versus the features themselves, we begin to see buyers who are more ‘bought in’ by the time they reach a sales person.”

This human-centered approach applies throughout the marketing process. Person-to-person connection can teach marketers more about customer profiles than data and analytics.

Marketers can learn about the ideal client through live interaction.  By participating in sales calls, making occasional visits to the field, and speaking with clients, marketers can gain a better understanding of consumers’ needs and wish lists.

3. Leverage real problems for relatable content. Sellers often encounter the same questions from prospects and clients. Those frequently asked questions make stellar content for marketers.

The heart of today’s B2B marketing lies in educating consumers with information that will make their jobs easier and more productive. When sellers share consumers’ most pressing questions, marketers can offer relevant and personable content.

4. Convert leads to sales with grace. When prospects are hit with direct sales efforts too soon, the company will lose leads.

Today’s prospects vehemently dislike being “sold to” and feeling “marketed at.”

DemandGen’s 2012 Content Preferences Survey states, “75 percent of the respondents said that B-to-B marketers were too heavy-handed with the sales messaging in their content.” In those circumstances, prospects withdraw from the buying process.

Marketers can improve the sales conversion by accurately discerning the point where a lead is ready for the sales team. At the appropriate time, marketing and sales must work together to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible for the prospect.

Bonardi supports the practice of tracking interactions to determine sales readiness. “Marketing automation systems are available to help assign a lead score based on a customer’s interaction with marketing initiatives.  The scoring values are determined cooperatively between sales and marketing,” says Bonardi. “Ultimately, when a lead reaches a sales-ready score, it is delivered to sales, with the detail behind it.  With a system like this, it becomes much easier to monitor the customer’s journey and identify the right time to make the sales call.”

By establishing specific criteria that determines when the prospect is sales ready, the organization can avoid dropped leads. Hubspot proposes GPCTBA/C&I as a starting point for organizations that do not have criteria in place.