B2B organizations often struggle with the lack of alignment between sales and marketing functions! While each team comes with their unique skill-sets, armed with relevant knowledge and insights, there still exists the infamous struggle between these two critical functions of the organization that ultimately impacts the business in a negative way. If the unique skill-sets and know-how of each team can be unified for the common goals and objectives, it can create higher chances of enhancing business.
Let us discuss why this peculiar b2b challenge exists and also see how the funnel dynamics could possibly have the solution you just needed.
The Challenge
Huge gap between sales and marketing alignment
The traditional funnel comes with some rigid territories that have been defined and followed by sales and marketing teams for ages. This could be one of the major reasons why there are hurdles in the alignment between these two functions.
The top part of the funnel is allocated to marketing and the marketing team works in the direction to get leads that have better chances of getting qualified. However, due to the rigid demarcation within the funnel, the sales teams are often left out of the picture up until this point. When the marketing team finally passes on these qualified leads to the sales teams, they may not agree with the lead quality or they are too engaged qualifying their own leads for faster results.
This demarcation of territories runs deeper in the overall approach and forms a part of the company culture. This can lead to in interaction, communication and collaboration between the teams, ultimately affecting business and ROI.
The Solution
How does one achieve alignment between sales and marketing?
Dismantling predefined territories could be the first step to instil a more collaborative approach for smooth functioning between sales and marketing teams. However, alignment starts at the core of the business when goals and objectives are defined and cemented. Therefore, the sales and marketing alignment should begin and grow as a company culture at the very core of how the business sells and how it intends to drive leads and convert them into business.
If you look closely, the ideal sales and marketing funnel is in reality a revenue funnel with clearly defined roles. Each stage of the funnel reflects the roles, responsibilities and accountability of both the teams.
Funnel stages and its dynamics-
The top of the funnel is where the seeds of collaboration can be ideally sowed. Here, both the sales and marketing teams can define the ICP (ideal customer profile), the buyer personas etc. jointly. This is the stage where the buyers’ journey can be defined with inputs from both sales and marketing teams. Defining these parameters together can enable the sales and marketing teams to be on the same page with clear understanding of goals and objectives.
At this stage, the buyers’ journey can be the revenue map for marketing and sales alignment. Marketing teams can help build brand awareness with relevant messaging that can help customers relate to the sales outreach. It is like getting the customer acquainted with sales and warming them up to sales outreach.
Mid funnel is the stage when prospects start becoming more aware of their needs. This is the stage where the sales and marketing teams can strategize to nurture the leads and drive them to further engage with the brand.
The bottom of the funnel belongs to sales and it involves creating and providing high value content assets to the customers and to motivate them for taking the buying action.
Conclusion-
It may not be possible to fully align sales and marketing, and the conflict or tussle between sales and marketing may continue to exist. However, by bringing a change in approach and breaking down traditional practices that have conditioned marketers to think a certain way; alignment between sales and marketing can definitely be achieved and with promising results too.