Shocking! Marketing and Sales Alignment Stats

Let’s take a look at the stats on Marketing and Sales Alignment. They paint quite a picture of the value of aligning both teams to one mission.

Mission: Revenue Growth

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If these stats resemble what is going on within your organization, it might be time to make a change.

Digging deeper into these studies, they are based on Medium Sized, B2B Organizations.

The Key Takeaways

1. Alignment Should Be Your Top Priority – When looking at the results from MQL to Outcome the more aligned the team the better the results. The more feedback loops, improved communication, and consistent feedback going both ways the better.
2. Process Matters – Designing a simple end-to-end process will improve your results. This process can be anywhere from a 1-4 week alignment. It should include not only sales and marketing, but also operations, customer success, and finance. Focusing all key areas around the Customer Lifecycle.
3. Identify Key Measures – KPI’s across the board need to focused on the customer lifecycle. Marketing’s KPI’s not on the number of leads but on revenue contribution. Creating a feedback loop on leads to be constantly improving the process.
4. Sales Training or Sales Development – The opening of doors is actually more important than the closing of sales. Focusing on this key area will improve results and grow revenue. While doing this effort, focus Marketing on closing ratios, and the steps to get there to improve sales enablement.
5. Automate Buyer Progression – It’s not enough to just automate, but the personalization and segmentation are important. You need to be speaking to the buyer persona to improve the customer journey.
6. Leadership – Alignment comes from the top. This includes where each team reports and whether it’s a divisional head or directly to a CEO. Equal power between Sales and Marketing does make an impact on your ability to produce results.
7. Find the Gaps – Find and train on the gaps, improving processes, and identify the areas where a small change can measurably improve outcomes. You can do this by mapping your processes, but also by being data-driven to identify these gaps.

What Matters

People – The right people, in the right positions with a servant mindset. Leadership and Teams who are open to the perspective of others, embracing an ‘always be learning’ mindset. This mindset will allow for improvement and innovation.

Process – Taking the time to put the work into understanding your current process, not just the perceived process, but also what is actually happening will make a significant impact. Further optimizing those processes will allow you to improve outcomes.

Technology – Leveraging technology is great, but doing so in a way that focuses on the Customer Lifecycle is what will humanize your automation.

Right now, as we are starting to look forward to a POST-COVID19 world taking a closer look may help as you plan for the rest of the year.

Our Disrupt the Silos – Marketing and Sales Alignment Check Workbook could help.

Sources: Marketo, Marketing Profs, Sirius Decisions, HubSpot, Forrester, Kapost, Annuitas, Leadspace