How To Construct A Bridge Between Marketing And Sales

Even though being seeming similar to an outside observer, sales and marketing are two distinct departments. Marketing improves sales by making sure that consumers are aware of the product as well as its benefits. However, sales are able to generate valuable data which allows for more focused marketing.

It’s a positive feedback loop however it only works if both departments are able to communicate and cooperate efficiently. Without this bridge, neither department functions to its best potential. To this end, organisations need to figure out how to bridge the chasm between sales and marketing for more effectiveness in both quarters.

It Still Comes Down To Empowering Our Salespeople To Sell Better

The marketing and sales functions within organisations are very different and some of the differences are in the kind of content that come out of sales enablement as opposed to what’s coming out of product marketing as well as even product development or product management:

• Everybody’s creating content, what are those differences or how do we bring them all together?
• Understanding what your sales teams need – really keeping those people in the loop, what do they need? Not just let’s dictate to them what we’re going to teach them.

Sales enablement has always been around even when there was no record of actual B2B sales and transactions because if there’s a business needing to sell to another business, there’s sales enablement going on.

Create Content Which Brings Better Leads

When the demand gen team asks sales what they most want from marketing, the no. 1 answer is better quality leads, followed closely by increased numbers of leads. And there’s a lot of evidence which supports the idea which says that better content equates to better leads, since most buyers are frequently nearly a third of the way through their journey before they begin contact sales teams. The further online that the buyer’s journey goes, the greater the responsibility is for marketing to create effective content which that supports that journey.

Content which educates the buyer – as well as standing out from competitors – is crucial in this initial phase. This is where interactive content has equated to all the difference. Research has demonstrated that interactive content is 93% effective at educating the buyer (which is more than double static content), and it’s 88% successful at distinguishing brands from competitors (more than a third better than static content).

However, what’s seldom discussed is that interactive content – such as ROI calculators and assessments – can act as vital tools in a sales associate’s arsenal for gauging where customers are in their life cycle as well as making sure that they’re getting personal, relevant attention as soon as they’re ready for it. Content fails when you create materials that speak to very broad audiences.” And static, impersonal content meant to appeal to the masses could be failing not just your customer, but also your sales team.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

If you would like to discover additional information about marketing fundamentals then you need to do our Marketing Fundamentals Course. Follow this link to find out more.