Sales and Marketing Alignment « True Influence Roundtable

Archive for the ‘Sales and Marketing Alignment’ Category

7 Steps to Align Sales and Marketing

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

My colleague, Shepherd Smith posted awhile ago about the importance of aligning sales and Marketing’s definition of “what is a lead”. I agree that too often these definitions have diverged without the other team realizing that each are using different definitions. Of course this can really heighten the divide that commonly exists between Sales and Marketing. Companies that are using a Marketing Automation platform know that aligning marketing and sales is a necessary first step to ensure that the pipeline is generating what everyone agrees are “better leads”.

MarketingSherpa gave a great summary of how to best achieve this alignment and ultimately generate and close more leads:

Get commitment from the top. The marketing and sales teams need to communicate, and it needs to start from the CMO and CSO. Says Fernandez. “The VP of Sales and VP of Marketing should go get a beer together.”
Model the marketing/sales funnel. An integrated revenue funnel helps each team understand what the other team is doing, and how their actions impact revenue.
Develop a common vocabulary. A common marketing/sales funnel also provides common language and metrics, which is especially important for defining when a lead is qualified and/or ready to be handed over to sales.
Look for operational disconnects. Make sure that goals, initiatives, and promotions are aligned by developing plans jointly and meeting monthly or at least quarterly.
Test key metrics to track. Trying to tackle all sales-marketing alignment issues at once is too daunting, so start by tracking two important metrics, such as lead volume and lead quality. This is a great way to start the dialog.
Create a closed-loop reporting process. Make sure marketing has a way to follow-up with sales to see how well leads are performing. This can help tune lead gen efforts, and is an important way to take qualified prospects that are not yet sales ready and recycle them back into marketing.
Share accountability between the teams. Marketing is a very measurable process, but the results are head to measure; it’s easy to measure Sales outcomes but Sales activity is hard to measure. As a result, compensation and rewards tend to be very different, which creates further problems. The better your marketing accountability and ability to measure marketing’s impact on the bottom line, the easier it is to bridge this gap

Tags: lead definition, marketing best practices, Sales and Marketing Alignment, what is a lead
Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Sales and Marketing Alignment, lead definition | No Comments »

Struggling to Attract Executive Level Prospects?

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

With so many disruptive, addictive technologies such as Email, IM, RSS and Cell Phones prospects are distracted like never before—and chances are, so are you!

So what can you do?

Key Tip: If you provide something of value to prospects, they will give you their respect, loyalty, time AND ultimately their business.

Consider the facts. Studies show that execs value Business Briefings (aka White Papers) most—more than case studies, product literature, articles from industry journalists, analyst reports, company websites, webcasts, blogs, online video and podcasts.

One thing is for sure – senior-most executives hate to be sold. They want to be in control and make their own decisions to buy. They view themselves as thought leaders and and love to have a “trusted advisor” (like you) nearby that they can count. So if you give away some of that proprietary, hard-earned insight in the form of a business briefing or ebook, you actually can propel yourself to a position of thought leader/trusted advisor and attract opportunity. This may seem counterintuitive but it works.

Of course there is a right way and a wrong way to do this… What’s the right way? Give your readers plenty of sample content before they are asked to trade their personal contact information for access. So many web sites ask for detailed information and lose valuable leads. Make this an interactive, engaging process that gives more value than you get and they will come in droves.

This idea comes from the video game market. Remember playing video game demos that provided you access to the first two levels? The same strategy can be applied to free business briefings. When your registration form finally appears, this is the prime opportunity to ask readers if they want to join your email opt-in list, in addition to receiving the briefing. Try it and you’ll see.

Tags: Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Sales Enablement
Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Sales Enablement, Sales and Marketing Alignment, appointment setting, lead definition | 2 Comments »

Aligning Sales and Marketing Definitions of “What is a Lead”

Monday, January 11th, 2010

One of the many healthy side effects of introducing a marketing automation system is the updating of definitions for each stage of the sales/marketing pipeline. The definitions of what constitutes a lead are often reviewed, discussed and determined during the implementation of a new Marketing Automation system. This takes place so companies can easily communicate with different kinds of potential customers in tailored, appropriate ways.

Many companies find, during this process, that Sales and Marketing have developed different definitions over time, and regaining unanimity via a fresh round of discussions can help to align potentially disjointed efforts and make the pipeline more efficient.

One set of definitions might be as follows:

Prospect – an individual who, based on title, company, and/or industry, should be interested in a product/service
Lead – has responded to some form of Marketing outreach (downloaded a white paper, took part in a webinar, visited the website, etc.)
Opportunity – has been contacted and qualified (via BANT or similar method – budget, authority, need, timeframe)

The call to action, then, for any company that has not brought together Sales and Marketing together within a reasonable period (say 18 months) is to bring them together to discuss how each department views and communicates with Prospects, Leads, and Opportunities. If your company is evaluating a Marketing Automation system, this discussion is even more urgent, as Marketing will be better equipped to use this information to nurture each category of potential customer in a focused, targeted manner with nurturing campaigns on an ongoing basis!

Tags: lead definition, Lead Scoring, marketing automation
Posted in Sales Enablement, Sales and Marketing Alignment, lead definition | 3 Comments »

Is it Time to Turn Up the Heat?

Friday, January 1st, 2010

I saw this today and thought it was inspiring for all of us to view as we start a new year.

The concept is that at 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, it boils. And with boiling water, comes steam. And steam can power a locomotive. Its that 1 degree that makes the difference in 2010. Kudos to www.simpletruths.com for making this available.