How leaders are using automation to align Marketing and Sales

By Sam Holmes, Head of Marketing at Force24
When I started in Sales & Marketing 10 years ago, there were usually two camps in the commercial room: sales, accountable for numbers and relationships, and marketing, responsible for driving ‘marketing qualified leads,’ brand awareness, and colouring in. Two proud teams at two banks of desks, pointing fingers at the other when the going got tough. Management frequently discussed the need for better alignment, touting it as a sensible long-term strategy. But what did good alignment actually look like? Good culture and camaraderie? Visibility and understanding of each other’s focuses and tactics? In reality, all of that is a good start. Fast forward to today, and leaders are doing much more to ensure both teams perform collectively to achieve greater results.
We’re starting to see this coming together, illustrated by the rise of Martech vendors expanding their CRM and sales enablement capabilities, and vice versa. The emergence of ‘Revenue Marketing’ has led to leadership vacancies requiring combined skillsets, with 2,000 companies now seeking to add a Chief Revenue Officer to their executive team (McKinsey). Take my own role as an example: it has evolved to encompass the strategy and, more importantly, the results of our Marketing and Inside Sales functions. This isn’t a hybrid or makeshift role, but one that is crucial for sales and marketing alignment.
Starting from the top
Sales and marketing alignment is born out of the shared need to deepen our understanding of customers. Companies prioritising marketing and sales alignment achieve 34% higher revenue and 36% higher customer retention rates than those that don’t.
They see 19% faster revenue growth and 15% higher profitability (MarTech Alliance).
“The new reality is that sales and marketing are continuously and increasingly integrated. Marketing needs to know more about sales, sales needs to know more about marketing, and we all need to know more about our customers” – Jill Rowley renowned B2B SaaS expert, who has lent her expertise to companies like Salesforce, Eloqua, HubSpot and Marketo
Knowing more about your customers requires constant strategic collaboration between marketing and sales. This is how you become a brand that genuinely resonates with your audience and ultimately, wins business easier.
So now we understand the sentiment of marketing and sales alignment, how do we achieve it? Starting with Marketing automation. Automation ensures seamless communication, real-time data sharing, and consistent messaging. All of which can be adopted by sales and marketing teams of all structures and sizes. By taking these 8 important steps, your teams will become seasoned collaborators.
Establish unified goals and KPIs
Aligning sales and marketing under common revenue goals ensures that both teams work towards the same objectives. Marketing focuses on generating qualified leads that convert to revenue, while sales concentrates on closing those leads. Each member of your sales and marketing teams should be on top of your revenue figures, understanding their role in this shared objective.Setting expectationsSetting clear expectations from the get-go helps to outline the responsibilities of each department. For example, marketing might commit to generating a specific number of qualified leads, while sales agree to follow-up each lead within a set timeframe. Clearly dividing tasks helps to foster accountability and ensures measurable standards across the board.
Get clear on what a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) looks like
An MQL represents a prospective customer who has shown a specific level of interest in your offering (as determined by preset marketing criteria) and is likely to become a customer based on learnings from past wins and in comparison to other contacts in your database. Marketing and sales should co-create a quantitative framework that clearly defines what an MQL looks like.
“It’s critical for success to have a shared understanding across sales and marketing on the definition of an MQL. An MQL is an individual within one of your personas (job role that buys or is a user of your product/service) at a business within your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) (sector and size of business you serve) that has shown interest in what you do.” – Nick Washbourne, Commercial Director at Force24
Lead Scoring
Agree on a numerical threshold or ‘lead score’ that turns a contact into an MQL ready for sales intervention. Identify the key actions and channels that contribute to deal closure, and assign points based on their significance within the sales cycle. Regularly review and adjust your criteria with continued input from your sales team to stay aligned.
Integrate your tech stack
Once a contact hits the agreed threshold, this information needs to be passed to sales instantly. Trigger notifications from your marketing automation system into communication tools like Slack, Teams, or Outlook to alert your sales team immediately.Visibility of Lead ScoresEnsure that the live lead score and behavioural insights are visible in both your marketing automation platform and CRM. This real-time data synchronisation provides a comprehensive view of customer interactions, allowing both teams to track engagement and intent consistently.Two-Way IntegrationCombining your CRM with your marketing automation platform allows for real-time data synchronisation, ensuring both teams have consistent and updated information on leads and customers. It’s not just your teams that should be talking to each other, your systems should be too!
Agree on an attribution model
Implement an attribution model that accurately reflects the customer journey. Common models include first-touch, last-touch, and multi-touch attribution. Each model provides different insights, so select one that aligns best with your business goals and sales cycle.
Co-create buyer personas and targeted account lists
Marketing and sales should collaborate to create and refine buyer personas. Sales insights from direct customer interactions can significantly enhance the accuracy of these personas, ensuring they reflect real customer needs and pain points.
Account-based marketing strategies
In ABM, sales and marketing jointly select target accounts and tailor their efforts to engage these accounts effectively. Marketing automation can track account interactions, and help in personalising outreach based on real-time data.
Account-based marketing is my favourite way to align efforts. It gets the tactic brainstorming sessions going with smart and fun ways to cut through the noise, providing a real feel of co-ownership in the results, which makes the successes a joint celebration. In my experience, ABM without sales just doesn’t work. It’s the ultimate example of spear-fishing, and focusing on the ICP that means the most to your business, in a way that feels both calculated and sporting.
Maintain consistent messaging
Unified Campaigns
Marketing automation ensures the content delivered to leads is consistent with the messaging used by sales. Giving your sales team visibility of live campaigns and understanding your sales team’s core messaging prevents discrepancies and provides a seamless experience for the customer.
Feedback Loops
Regular feedback from sales on the effectiveness of marketing content and campaigns helps you refine strategies and improve lead quality. Automation can effectively track and report on these metrics, facilitating continuous improvement.
Nurture long-term prospects
Lead nurturing campaigns. Not all leads are ready to buy immediately. In fact, 95% of your audience almost definitely aren’t. Use marketing automation to run lead nurturing campaigns based on predefined criteria. These campaigns will keep leads engaged with your brand, by providing relevant content until the contact exhibits signs of being ready for sales interaction.
Foster ongoing collaboration
Scheduled meetings.
Regular cross-functional meetings, such as weekly or monthly check-ins, enable both teams to share insights, discuss challenges, and align their strategies. This creates an open forum and keeps both teams on the same page. Automation will help to form your meeting agendas, with insights into what is and isn’t working.
Centralised communication channels
Using tools like Slack or integrated email systems facilitates easy communication and quick sharing of updates, which is essential for maintaining alignment.
Marketing and sales alignment isn’t just another corporate buzzword. It’s the key to unlocking business growth.
We must integrate our sales and marketing teams if we want to deepen our understanding of customers and resonate with our audience. By following the outlined steps, marketing and sales teams can not only become best friends, but also drive tangible business growth and celebrate shared success.
Whether it’s aligning revenue metrics, refining lead scoring, integrating tech stacks, or nurturing leads effectively, embracing automation paves the way for marketing and sales teams to flourish, together. Download our Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation to breathe new life into your automation strategies.
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