How Marketing Can Support the Sales Process

How Marketing Can Support the Sales Process:

The goal of most marketing activities is to drive leads, which will convert to new customers and grow the business. To do this effectively, however, a deep integration between marketing and sales is needed, and it starts with shared information and processes. Below are three steps to ensure that marketing best supports the sales process.

1) Get Everybody on the Same Page

“Even though sales may not be involved in the execution of the program, sales should be involved in a number of ways: sharing their point-of-view, sharing thoughts for messaging, and sharing what they are hearing in the marketplace.” — David Kirkpatrick (@davidkonline), B2B How-To: 5 Lead Nurturing Tactics to Get from Lead Gen to Sales-Qualified

If you haven’t already, identify clear responsibilities, processes and goals to sync your marketing and sales efforts. To accomplish this, we recommend holding a meeting with key players from both marketing and sales to discuss:

• What does your existing lead database look like? What customer relationship management (CRM) system is used, and how is lead information updated within it?
• What baseline data can be used to effectively forecast marketing and sales goals?
• What is the standard or average length of buying process from first interest to close?
• What current processes are in place to follow up with new leads? What material does the sales team already share with its new and existing leads, and what schedule (if any) does that process follow?
• How do customers find your company, or do you find them?
• What drives initial conversations? What problems are buyers facing?
• What are common questions and roadblocks that your buyers face at different stages of the sales cycle?
• What language do prospects use to describe their challenges and possible solutions?
• How qualified are existing and target leads?
• At what point does a lead get turned over from marketing to sales? Will there be any overlap?
• Once a lead becomes a customer, how can we stay in touch with them to turn the customer into a brand ambassador?

Use the insight gained from these discussions to align lead-outreach efforts, determine messaging, establish common tracking and reporting systems, and identify areas for improvement in the marketing-sales handoff. By working together, you’ll be better equipped to move interested, qualified leads through the sales funnel.

2) Align Content Marketing with the Buying Cycle

Based on industry research and discussions with your sales team, marketing can create content for common stages that answers frequent questions along the buying cycle.

As Ardath Albee (@ardath421) explains in Less is the New More, “If you truly know what questions your prospects need answered to take the next steps in their buying process, your efforts can be minimized by creating the content that delivers the right information at the right time.”

For example, thought-leadership pieces on industry trends are often successful for creating awareness and bringing users into the sales funnel, while case studies or solution-specific content are better for leads toward the middle/bottom of the funnel. With the right content, you can guide prospects from initial touchpoint to close by giving them the exact information they need at each stage of the process.

Content distribution can be handled by marketing, sales or a combination thereof, depending on what makes the most sense for your organization and what marketing/sales software you have access to. Just be sure that both parties are aware of their responsibilities, and the actions of the other department to ensure a seamless, consistent experience for your leads.

3) Develop a Process for Shared Data and Reporting

Another key way that marketing can arm its sales team is by providing lead intelligence gathered during the qualification stage. This includes everything from contact and demographic information, to areas of interest and level of engagement. Insight can be captured and tracked using marketing software and/or CRM systems.

Lead behaviors like form completions, content downloads, event attendance, viewed web pages and more can help the sales team get a clearer picture of each prospect’s individual interests and challenges. As a result, sales is better able to tailor their conversations and prioritize follow up, spending time on the most qualified leads for more closes.

That being said, it’s important to establish a process for sales to give marketing feedback as well. With insight into sales data—such as conversions, customer lifetime value, revenue generated and more—marketing can refine its strategies to continually deliver the most qualified leads.

Your Sync-up Strategies?

What steps have your marketing and sales teams taken to sync activities and drive leads through the buying process? Share your strategies below.

Related Posts

For more information, check out these related PR 20/20 posts:

• Lead Logic: The Basics Behind A Lead Nurturing Strategy
• 9 Steps to Gain Leads and Loyalty with Content Marketing

Authors:

• Tracy DiMarino is a consultant at PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. Follow Tracy on Twitter @TracyDiMarino.
• Jessica Donlon is also a consultant at PR 20/20. Connect with Jessica on Twitter @JessicaDonlon.

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