Step-by-Step Guide to Align B2B Sales & Marketing in 2022 - TransFunnel Consulting

 It is a no brainer why sales and marketing alignment is the biggest determinant of a company’s success. With statistics of sales-marketing sync causing 34% more revenue from new customers and a 36% increase in customer retention, it speaks volumes for any B2B company to take their next step.

However, businesses across the globe are facing an imbalance in sales and marketing costing the companies trillions in loss annually. However, with a simple and strategic sales and marketing alignment, businesses can balance well between the creative demands, limited budgets, channel decisions and develop sales and marketing strategies that can target work towards a common objective.

This article will give a step-by-step guide for sales and marketing alignment for B2B so that they can work together towards one goal of higher revenue.

Sales and marketing alignment: A step-by-step guide

1. Set shared goals

Setting common goals for the organisation with its vision and mission incorporated defines the first step in forming a clear culture that communicates the company’s objective. Once the employees of the company are clear on what the vision will be, they will commence with questions such as, how will it be marketed, what will be the target audience, how the product or service would be developed and why would certain features be included and how would the leads be identified and nurtured.

This is when sales and marketing alignment reaches the objectives of increasing quarterly revenue, reducing customer churn, increasing CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value) and achieving these objectives through communication. For this purpose, businesses can use communication tools, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and VPs of Sales and Marketing to serve as the command centre.

2. Ace the demand generation model

Demand generation bridges the gap between a company’s sales and its revenue operations by including multiple touchpoints such as blogging, email list creation, social media promotion and more. Considering demand generation is similar to inbound marketing and lead generation, it forms the glue between sales and marketing and needs to work together. It defines some crucial aspects of a brand such as the stage of demand generation in control, the tools that can help in bringing customers forward and which points to automating for better customer experience.

3. Select from the best tools and build your Martech stack

Marketing and sales can work together to coordinate the evaluation of tools, their purchase and how to use them across the stack. It is vital to consider at this point that even though the tasks seem different, the goal is common for both sales and marketing. You can build an effective, workable stack that can be mutually utilised by both sales and marketing teams. This will help them to identify the purpose of each tool and troubleshoot the issues that appear.

4. Clarify lead scoring 

Once the sales and online marketing consultant are clear on the target market for the product or service, the actual task begins. Now, sales and marketing can bury the long-standing hatchet of the imbalance causing a loss of leads. Sales and marketing alignment can work on lead scoring by measuring the buyer’s intent of a qualified prospect and their value to the brand.

5. Build full-funnel content

The gold standard for every sales and marketing alignment is consistent brand messaging. This makes it crucial for teams to map the content for the customer journey. Their sync needs a clear understanding where marketing clarifies the exact role their content will play in pushing leads down the funnel.

6. Accelerate lead nurture sequences from marketing automation to CRM 

For a smoother and streamlined flow of leads, online marketing lead consultants should provide sales with the exact reasoning on why the prospects are handed to them. Besides, they must also give context on the action those prospects took to gain a place in the marketing database, the scope of those leads and the interaction that lead to their qualification in the funnel.

7. Align data, track and report on the same metrics

When a brand has a bi-directional data sync and a streamlined lead nurturing cycle, both marketing and sales can identify the KPIs and the metrics that are individually and mutually important to them. Both teams can then agree on a way how to track them and how to close the loop of lead conversion.

The problem between marketing and sales is age-old and if not nipped in the bud, can have a detrimental impact on the business. The HubSpot magicians at TransFunnel use the many features and functionalities of this platform to help marketing and sales work together without overstepping their boundaries.

Our sales and marketing alignment and automation process includes defining marketing goals, sales goals, marketing and sales initiatives to achieve those goals, assigning marketing & sales accountability, sales engagement, lead scoring, defining MQL criteria and its handoff to sales.

When marketing passes a lead to sales, it is practically ready to make a buying decision. At TransFunnel, our demonstrable experience in all aspects of HubSpot helps us craft a sales and marketing alignment strategy executed through HubSpot. As the first Diamond Certified HubSpot partner and marketing experts, we have what it takes to not only ensure your marketing and sales work in tandem, but also deliver enhanced marketing and sales returns.