20% of small businesses fail in their first year. This is a scary statistic, but this doesn't make your organization a hopeless cause. There are actionable steps that you can take to prevent your business from joining these ranks.
One of the best things you can do to ensure the longevity of your business is to promote the alignment of your sales and marketing teams. Promoting communication throughout the teams responsible for the sales funnel means each team has a full picture of customer needs. Read on to learn about some of the benefits of doing this and how it can provide real value to your business.
Promotes Interdepartmental Communication
A 2022 study estimated that poor communication costs U.S. businesses $1.2 trillion annually - and these losses are especially prevalent among communication-heavy teams like marketing. A business's marketing team is responsible for, among other things, keeping track of how customers are interacting with the business and the content it puts out, and tailoring future content to better fit customer needs and increase ROI. This means that everyone throughout the team needs to be on the same page.
But data about customer behavior is not just relevant to marketing; it's also critical for the sales team to understand the needs of their customers and leads. If sales knows what content and campaigns a customer has engaged with, they will know what the customer is interested in and what they value, so they can optimize their pitch. This is why sales and marketing alignment is important - it makes for a more loyal customer base.
Using alignment strategies encourages your sales and marketing teams to remain in contact every step of the way. A great way to keep them in communication is to provide them access to integrated CRM software, which records customer interactions as well as the performance of marketing campaigns and content.
This lets teams work in tandem to support consumers throughout all stages of your sales funnel. When early-funnel marketing teams tell mid-funnel sales teams what they know, they will be better able to implement solutions that have value to consumers.
Increases Marketing Campaign Effectiveness
Just as the marketing team should be relaying information to sales, sales should be providing marketing with information about what leads want, and the types of leads that are most likely to convert. Sometimes assumptions are made by the marketing team - in fact, that is a part of creating a buyer persona profile - and those assumptions turn out to be a little off-base. There are also times when marketing content is generating leads, but those leads aren't ultimately converting to customers.
Consumer needs can change over time, too, so even if the marketing team is currently on the right track, that may not be the case forever.
When sales relays data about leads to the marketing team, marketing gains a better idea of which solutions they should focus on to capture top-of-funnel consumers. They can tailor their advertisements to the most relevant audience- people who are interested in buying more popular and high-value services. Whether these insights are used in SEO, SEM, or social media marketing, you will gain more clicks that convert.
The result is that more people will find the business' top services and be likely to make a purchase. They then will have the opportunity to build a relationship with your brand and become a loyal customer and an evangelist for your company.
Implement Sales and Marketing Alignment Strategies
If you want to align your sales and marketing teams but aren't sure where to start, a great first step is to find the right CRM. To learn more about choosing a CRM that will make your teams more efficient and aligned, check out our blog post, How Integrated CRM Software Can Optimize Your RevOps Approach.
This post will tell you everything you need to know about choosing a CRM that will improve your company's efficiency, because, we know, the sheer number of choices that are available can be overwhelming. Follow the link below to learn more.
