Sales and marketing are both members of the same family, but many companies run both departments independent of each other. Data collected from either group is kept separate, and any insight that might benefit the other department is never realized.
Agencies need to understand the importance of sharing information and talent across the divisional divide. By combining the best of both sales and marketing along with their data, companies can leverage what each department knows and develop a more holistic marketing approach. To help, 13 members of Forbes Agency Council share their methods for combining sales and marketing departments effectively to leverage the best of both divisions.
Members share the best ways to help sales and marketing teams collaborate.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Create Stronger Cross-Functional Synergy
Shared goals between the two teams can manifest a synergy that creates a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. Regular joint strategy sessions with clearly-defined goals is a great start. Ensure that they have methods for ongoing feedback and sharing of information. Leverage collaboration software to help create better exchange of information between the two teams to keep synergies strong. – Henry Kurkowski, One WiFi
2. Help Them Align Behind A Bigger Purpose
With demanding clients and aggressive departmental goals, we can understand why employees get lost in day-to-day tasks. This level of focus, however, often comes with a side effect: lack of collaboration. Teams that continually explore the purpose that gives meaning to their activities facilitate an ecosystem for leaders to emerge and identify opportunities to bridge gaps between departments. – Ahmad Kareh, Twistlab Marketing
3. Address The Ongoing Pain Points Of Each
The marketing team has pain points that can be addressed by the sales team (for example: we don’t know how many sales we do a year for social bragging). The sales team has pain points that can be addressed by the marketing team (we keep answering the same questions over and over, why isn’t this on our social media or our website?). Have meetings often, make these points known and create a plan of action. – David Kley, Web Design and Company
4. Wear The Other Person’s Shoes
Trying to get your sales and marketing teams work well together? Try an exercise and have each team do the other team’s job for a week — including reports. You learn a lot when you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. – Kim Plyler, Sahl Communications Inc.
5. Meet Regularly To Align Strategy And Direction
The primary ways we bridge the gap between marketing and sales are regular strategy meetings and clear collaboration. Our department leaders meet regularly to align on strategy and direction. We also collaborate through our project management software to ensure we’re working together and accomplishing the projects we have prioritized. This enables our teams to have a clear alignment on strategy. – Matt Bowman, Thrive Internet Marketing Agency
6. Make Everyone Part Of The Creative Process
The best way to break down silos is to bring both teams into the creative process. Our team brings leaders from both teams together to give them a brief on each campaign to explain how it is uniquely ours. This way, there is alignment on what the brand is and what we’re trying to achieve with the campaign. When we all speak the same language, the outcome is cohesive and authentic. – Scott Harkey, OH Partners
7. Let ABM Be Your Catalyst For Collaboration
Account-based marketing (ABM) is ideal for breaking down traditional divides in your organization. ABM requires that sales and marketing both take active roles in targeting accounts, defining goals and securing a budget — together. Its flipped funnel eliminates the need for a traditional marketing funnel and allows your team to immediately begin with targeted accounts, and going from there. – Hamid Ghanadan, LINUS
8. Don’t Physically Put Them In Silos
Don’t segregate your staff within your office. Mixing roles creates greater empathy and collaboration instead of building resentment “for the dummies on the third floor.” – Ryan Short, MODassic Marketing
9. Bring Everyone Together For Lunch
Everybody has to eat. Try hosting monthly or quarterly meetings around a pressing topic, bring in lunch and invite the marketing and sales teams to come together for an open discussion. The casual atmosphere (and a free meal) will often help people relax and share their insights. Oftentimes, getting consensus, or at least direction, is as simple as getting everyone together in one place. – Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications
10. Talk To Clients First
Most marketing people never talk to clients and salespeople only talk to their own clients, not other salespeople’s clients. We interview a wide range of clients and then bring the sales and marketing teams together to listen to what all clients say. This helps both teams start to sing from the same songbook and use messages that matter to clients. – Randy Shattuck, The Shattuck Group
11. Make It One Team, One Goal
To bridge the gap between marketing and sales you have to show them both the “WIIFM” or ” What’s In It For Me.” Show sales how marketing affects their success. Show marketing how their efforts are only realized when sales are successful. There is only one team and that team has one goal — drive business. The more you can drive home the single-team message, the lower the silo walls become. – A. Lee Judge, Content Monsta
12. Include Collaboration In Your Culture
Most businesses are siloed off from a marketing and sales perspective primarily because that’s how they used to interact and it hasn’t been changed. New forms of marketing are direct to consumer, and with that, sales and marketing need to be a team from the ground up. From messaging on the website, to the flow of interactions before someone is considered a qualified lead, it’s a team effort. – Sean Smith, SimpleTiger LLC
13. Gather Everyone Around The CRM
The foundation for sales and marketing alignment is a shared commitment to your customer relationship management (CRM). If a marketing department wants to manage the company website but not follow every lead through the sales process, it’s not going to be effective in truly supporting sales. That’s only possible by sharing responsibility for the CRM. Otherwise, leads will be dropped and both teams will be frustrated. – Scott Baradell, Idea Grove
