Collaboration Between Sales and Marketing Brings Higher Returns

Marketing and sales don’t always see eye to eye. Those in sales can see theirs as the most important department. They’re bringing in the money, right? While those in the marketing world can see their department as the key to a business’s success. They’ve identified the customer’s wants and needs and have created a customer experience to provide a solution. These two departments actually work best when they collaborate. Here are a few reasons why these two teams should work together.

They Have the Same Goal

Even though they play different roles, both teams’ ultimate objective is building a dependable revenue stream. They just have different parts of the puzzle. Marketing tends to handle the more long-term, big-picture objectives, like branding and creating interest for potential and established clients. Sales often has more short-term goals like monthly quotas and has a direct, one-on-one relationship with the client. Both teams have valuable insight about the client and should communicate openly.

SLA Success

Some companies set up a Service-Level Agreement (SLA) between their marketing and sales teams. This specifies agreed-upon internal services each team with provide to the other. For instance, marketing could set a leads goal to support sales while sales provides average lead-to-customer conversion rate for marketing feedback. Recent data shows, “65% of marketers whose companies have this type of SLA see higher return on investment from their inbound marketing efforts.” (hubspot.com)

A Clear, Unified Vision

When sales and marketing teams communicate regularly, they can create a shared vision. This provides a unified view of the buyer journey and a more holistic understanding of the customer. A LinkedIn study found, “Cohesive, shared customer intelligence paves the way for higher conversion and win rates.” Not to mention, customers can sense tension and are less likely to trust a company that doesn’t trust its own teams. And when it comes down to it, the customer is the most important person in your company and giving them the best experience is a win-win for everyone.