Sales and marketing are perhaps a company’s most essential components. The teams generate sales leads, organize b2b marketing efforts, and provide businesses with a steady stream of new prospects to pursue. Maybe that’s why some Chief Marketing Officers have said that a company’s marketing budget can account for up to 40% of its overall budget.
Regardless of how much your company spends on these departments, you need to ensure that the two teams work together well in order to maximize your investment. But before you can do that, you’ll first need to understand the exact roles these teams should be playing.
The goals and processes of sales teams and marketing teams are commonly confused and intertwined with one another, so it’s worth taking a moment to refresh your understanding of the purpose of these two groups.
We’re covering everything you need to know to understand the nuances of these departments, as well as some tips for helping the two teams work together as effectively as possible. Read to learn more.
Sales And Marketing: What’s The Difference?
Let’s start by answering this important question. These are two business functions that exist within a broader organization. Each will play a role in lead generation and conversion. But the difference between the two lies in how each team interacts with your company’s sales leads.
Marketing is the department that attracts new leads to your company. Its job is to generate new sales leads through b2b marketing or b2c campaigns. Your sales staff’s job is to take those leads and convert them into paying customers.
It might help to think of the teams as two distinct stages of your sales process. Marketing comes first. They identify specific lead opportunities from the broader market. Once they’ve done that, they’ll pass the leads off to sales staff so that they can begin converting them.
The last section covered how these teams differ from one another on a broad level. Now let’s take a look at some of the more specific ways these two teams can be differentiated. Here are four key differences between sales and marketing you should be aware of:
Process
Both sales and marketing departments tend to create plans that inform the specific tasks they need to complete to work toward their goals. Though some of the information contained on each can be similar, sales and marketing plans have some key differences.
Marketing plans focus on the 4Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. But sales plans outline action plans, sales tactics, tools that will be used in the sales process, and several other pieces of information that won’t necessarily be considered during a marketing team’s process.
Goals
Of course, the primary goal for both departments is to generate revenue for the company. But marketing and sales departments set different sub-goals to reach that outcome.
For example, the main goal of a marketing team is to create long-term awareness and interest in the company’s brand and what it sells. Sales departments tend to have a shorter-term outlook. Their focus is on hitting sales goals, which are often measured on a monthly basis.
Tools and resources
Modern sales and marketing teams will use numerous tools and resources to reach their goals. Some of these, such as social media, are shared. But others may be unique to one department or the other.
For example, marketing teams use things like:
- Data reporting software
- SEO tools
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools
- Content creation tools
But a sales department may not use any of these things. Instead, they might utilize resources like:
- Invoicing software
- Inventory management tools
- Meetings apps
- Document tools
Strategies
Both marketing and sales teams will use a variety of strategies to reach their goals. But there won’t be much overlap between the two departments.
Marketing teams will reach out to potential sales leads with b2b marketing, blog marketing, social media marketing, and other methods. Sales teams will use sales methods to close deals, including SNAP selling, Inbound selling, and consultative selling.
How To Get Sales And Marketing Departments Working Together
Now we’ve laid the groundwork for what traits sales and marketing departments share with one another and how they can be differentiated. But what really matters is what you can do to ensure that the two work together effectively. Bringing your sales and marketing teams together could be the key to finding and converting more leads, thereby increasing your company’s overall revenue.
So how do you do it? Start by trying out the following methods.
Hire the right people
You’ll find bridging the gap between your sales and marketing teams much easier to do if you start working from the ground up. Companies that are serious about merging sales and marketing teams as much as possible start by hiring the right people.
Ideally, you would want to hire salespeople who could also have some background in marketing, and vice versa – point being that you should try to hire those who understand both worlds. Someone who has that understanding will be more capable of working with the team they’re not a part of when the time comes to do so.
Create goals that support each other
Companies commonly set goals and track them with measurements like Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). The next time your company is putting these together, try to come up with milestones that can be applied to both your sales and marketing teams.
For example, you might create an OKR that asks your employees to create predictable growth. That’s an objective that both your sales and marketing teams will need to work toward. As long as the two departments are sharing a common goal, they’ll be much likelier to work together and support one another’s growth.
Spend time building relationships between the two teams
One of the best ways to build a relationship between your sales and marketing teams is to help create relationships between members of those teams. Some of this may occur naturally, but you can speed the process along by creating opportunities for those relationships to form.
You might want to bring together your sales and marketing departments for regular meetings. Or maybe you can create a shared Slack channel that makes it easier for the two teams to communicate with one another.
The goal should just be to bring your marketing and sales staff together as much as possible. Doing so could be just what you need to help the teams start working together more effectively.
Collaborate on content creation ideas
Content creation is one area that both your sales and marketing teams are invested in. The content you create and distribute will play a key role in your ability to attract new leads. It will also have a big impact on what those leads think about your company.
That makes content creation the perfect opportunity to bring together your sales and marketing teams. Consider putting together committees with members from both of these teams. Then have the committee brainstorm ideas for content that satisfies the needs of both sales and marketing. It’s exactly the type of collaboration that will help these two teams work together more efficiently in the long run.
Leadlander Can Boost The Performance Of Your Sales And Marketing Teams
Another way to facilitate a better connection between your sales and marketing departments is to give each of them access to the same powerful tool. LeadLander could be just what you need to accomplish that.
Our platform providers valuable information to enhance both your inbound and outbound sales and marketing efforts. With LeadLander, you’ll get specific details about anonymous website visitors as well as prospects you’re already tracking.
This intel can be leveraged to fine-tune your b2b marketing campaigns. Your sales staff can use it to identify the best time to contact sales leads and to figure out what to talk about during that first conversation.
Your sales and marketing staff will have access to the same easy-to-understand reporting dashboard when you use LeadLander, so it will be seamless for both teams to identify meaningful information and share.
Of course, we don’t just expect you to take our word for it. Instead, we’re putting our money where our mouth is.
You can visit our website today to sign up for a free 14-day trial of LeadLander. You can sign up without a credit card and will be free to cancel any time. So why not give our platform a shot? There’s no risk on your end, and doing so could be just what you need to bring your sales and marketing teams closer together.