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When it comes to marketing versus sales, everything tends to become subjective. There are some that will tell you that sales are more important than marketing but it is hard to argue with the fact that marketing does not generate sales. The real problem lies in the fact that sales and marketing departments often do not work together.
According to Gordon Tang, there are numerous situations in which most marketing leads generated are not properly acted upon by the sales departments. An incredible 90% of the selling content is not used when selling. The sales reps are also frustrated since a lot of their time isspent creating tools and messages.
Statistics are bad but they do highlight the fact that marketing and sales have to align. Here’s why.
Customers See Both Marketing And Sales Tactics
Around half of customers declared that the salesperson was not properly prepared for the meeting they had. This often happens because employees do not have all that is needed for that initial meeting. Sales reps do want to be properly prepared but this is close to impossible without marketing.
Modern marketing uses much more research than in the past. The research that is done is not conducted with the sole purpose of generating leads. It is also done with the purpose of understanding the target audience. All the information that is gathered can then be transmitted to the sales team so that there is a much higher chance of making a sale. After all, if you do not know what the customer wants and needs, how can you sell something?
Lead Overloads Happen
Inefficiency can so easily happen as marketing is not aligned with sales. When marketing is solely focused on generating sales, the common approach is to get as many leads as possible. Unfortunately, this might lead to getting way too many for the sales departments to be able to actually use. Marketing automation platforms do help marketers a lot, allowing a huge generating volume. This is definitely something that is good but not in the event that the sales department cannot use them.
The idea is that marketing generates many leads for sales teams to follow up on. However, the best marketers do first think about efficiency. They try to create strategies and procedures that would increase the possibility of success when sales departments follow up on the leads that were generated.
Training Both Sales And Marketing Departments
One of the best things that companies can do right now is to train both marketing and sales departments at the same time. This is done through team leadership members. As training happens at the same time it is really easy for work to become more efficient. For instance, when referring to the leads problem, the sales department can realize exactly how many leads can be handled while the marketing department figures out how to increase efficiency to deliver more than just leads, all with the purpose of eventually making sales. By working together the departments always increase profits and brand awareness.
