Marketing and sales. Sales and marketing. It’s a relationship that’s as old as business itself. Sometimes it’s happy. Sometimes it’s amicable. Often, it’s rocky. Sales and marketing departments can feel like married couples, distant cousins or casual acquaintances. Until recently, the two departments lived (metaphorically at least) on different streets, or even in different neighborhoods. The conventional view of sales and marketing is that they are separate entities destined to work in isolation of each other. And yet, they are clearly related. Marketing generates leads, and salespeople work to qualify those leads. Working towards a shared goal in separate silos is unproductive, which explains why 79% of marketing leads don’t convert into sales. In a recent Linkedin report of 3,516 sales professionals and 3,627 marketers, the majority said lack of alignment and collaboration between sales and marketing leads to weaker financial performance, poorer customer experience, and reduced customer retention. But here’s another number: businesses that closely align sales and marketing have 36% higher customer retention rates and 38% higher sales win rates. And high-performing marketing teams are 12.8x more likely to coordinate efforts. It’s official: when sales and marketing collaborate, metrics soar, costs decrease, and life cycles are more concise. But how does that work in practice? It’s seductive to see fancy new tech as the short-cut answer. And technology will play a role, but it needs to be integrated in a context that closely aligns both departments. To achieve that, it helps to identify areas that provide a focus for successful collaboration; practical measures; and new roles that support a unified vision of both departments. Here’s how.
A unified approach to sales and marketing: ABS
There’s a name for this united sales and marketing strategy: account-based selling. Account-based selling/marketing (ABS/ABM) has been around for a while, but has just recently started to make a splash. Gartner predicts that ABS will become the standard selling framework for tech companies with over $5M in revenue. ABS believes that not all leads are created equal. Following a quality-over-quantity mindset, accounts are evaluated in terms of their potential for success; sales and marketing come together to target the highest value accounts with a seamless, super-personalized experience. This collaborative approach marks a new era in which sales and marketing are unified, the sales process streamlined. And it works. 97% of marketers say ABM offers higher ROI than alternative marketing activities. Salesforce reports Google searches for ABM topped a 10-year record in late 2015, and since that time, search volume has doubled. ABM increases conversions, shortens sales cycles, drives retention and encourages a more holistic view of the customer. What’s not to like?