Why marketers need to align with their counterparts in sales to drive ROI

 

Nikki Dawson, Head of EMEA Marketing at Highspot

​​Sales and marketing teams often work in silos. Whilst they are two distinct disciplines in their own right, these two key business functions rarely meet and discuss the ROI from the content and activities conducted by one another. 

But for any organisation to successfully grow, sales and marketing need to be singing from the same hymn sheet. They need to be working together in harmony towards a common goal.

 

The right approach, with the right tools in place can erase friction and break down the barriers between your sales and marketing teams. The overwhelming majority of sales and marketing professionals (71%) agree that a lack of alignment between their teams has had a negative impact on revenue. Alignment, communication and collaboration between the two is mission critical to sales success and driving bottom-line ROI.

So, what are the barriers for marketers?

Lack of visibility of their assets

In order to manage and maximise digital marketing initiatives, marketers need to have visibility over how their assets are being utilised and be able to track what’s working in order to maximise them in the future.

New research shows that over a third (34%) of marketers aren’t confident they have the tools they need to manage and maximise digital marketing initiatives A further third (33%) also lack confidence in being able to easily access the data needed to maximise return on digital marketing efforts. 

These are common pain points, and without having access to this data, marketing teams are unable to adapt and enhance content for greater success and can struggle to drive content adoption by their sales team.

Having efficient technology

Understanding which assets are driving results with potential prospects is fundamental for an organisation’s sales and marketing functions to collaborate efficiently and effectively. Having too much content across multiple channels and platforms with no ‘single source of truth’ is a recipe for ‘content chaos’.                                                                

This issue is of far greater concern to marketers. The lack of integration and automated flow of data for generating performance metrics is a major concern. Difficult or poor reporting capabilities further exasperates this issue. Nearly half (49%) of marketers’ flag this as a top technology challenge, compared to 38% in sales. 

Creating assets that have demonstrable success

Marketers need to have confidence in their ability to view content analytics which demonstrates the ROI of the collateral they are producing. 29% of marketers feel least confident in their ability to view content analytics.

Furthermore, 30% feel the same lack of confidence creating marketing assets that have demonstrable success at meeting specific business objectives and driving sales growth. Having a shared platform that both sales and marketing can contribute their insights to, with easy access to that data, helps maximise return on digital marketing efforts.

Why closer alignment with Sales is the answer

Misalignment between sales and marketing teams has a detrimental effect and negatively impacts your wider business objectives. At best energy and resources are being wasted. At worst, it leads to strategies directly contradicting each other and not being delivered.

For marketers, closer alignment with their counterparts in sales will provide them with proof of how content is being used and how their assets are impacting revenue. Not having this oversight over how marketing content correlates with sales performance means that marketers won’t know how to improve messaging and materials.

How is this relationship best achieved?   

Enter sales enablement – whilst still very much in its embryonic stages as a profession in EMEA, many businesses are yet to have it as a strategic go-to-market function A sales enablement platform helps bridge the gap between sales and marketing teams and optimises the performance of both.

Marketers need to understand how their work contributes and impacts the wider business objectives. There needs to be a strategic, ongoing process of equipping sales teams with the content, guidance, training and coaching they need to effectively engage buyers. 

The implementation of a sales enablement platform can provide valuable insights to your marketing teams, as well as ensuring that both are aligned on messaging and goals. It will get your sales and marketing teams to work seamlessly together and will avoid time and resources being wasted and damaging financial performance.  

In summary

With economic turbulence creating concern across Europe, knee jerk reactions such as cutting budgets, is likely to result in a short-term gain, long term loss. Businesses need to do more with less, and now is the time for marketers to build better relationships by aligning with their counterparts in sales. In doing so, it will improve productivity and efficiency to navigate the economic headwinds.

Having a sales enablement tool in place to provide detailed insights on sales performance and measure the impact of sales growth is the best way for marketers to demonstrate success at meeting specific business objectives and driving bottom line ROI.