5 Key sales and marketing communication tips to increase Smarketing

8 September 2021

Good communication between sales and marketing translates to higher productivity. See these five key sales and marketing communication tips to increase smarketing

By Kompass International

8 September 2021

In many ways, sales and marketing are two sides of the same coin. But to see real benefit from both sides, you need to get them working together.

Companies with solid sales and marketing alignment see an average of 19% higher revenue growth and 15% greater profitability. In other words, when sales and marketing communication works, your ROI sees a direct benefit.

Here are five ways that your leadership can drive successful communication between your sales and marketing teams to drive revenue and increase customer retention.

1. Share sales and marketing goals

If you want to align sales and marketing successfully, your first step is simple: start working toward the same thing. The best way to do this is by having shared goals between your teams.

For one thing, this allows sales and marketing to recognize that they’re working toward the same thing formally. For another, it gives you a chance to formally articulate what you’re working towards and establish how sales and marketing will work together to achieve it.

This can include everything from an overarching sales and marketing strategy to more specific, task-oriented goals. Either way, be sure to strike a balance, with the right combination of actionable tasks for both sides and a clear sense of how they contribute to the big picture.

2. Make collaboration easy

If you want to drive collaboration, start by making collaboration easy.

Start by acknowledging that sales and marketing communication is a two-way street–and it’s mutually beneficial that way. Sales teams operate based on information shared with customers by the marketing team, and the marketing team uses feedback from the sales teams to generate content aimed at customers.

The easiest way to simplify collaboration is to work in a shared environment. Using various team collaboration tools like Slack, Asana, Notion, Microsoft Project, and Evernote Business. Pair those with trusty standbys like Google Drive and Dropbox so that everyone has access to the same files in the same place.

3. Drive sales and marketing alignment through shared terminology and processes

Have you ever tried putting an English speaker and a Japanese speaker in the same room and telling them to hold a conversation while speaking their languages? It doesn’t work. They’re using completely different terms for the same things with no common ground.

For example, let’s say you have a shared folder in Google Drive. That shared folder won’t do much good if you’re using two different names for the same thing. The next thing you know, you have two copies of everything, and none of them match.

Instead, take the time to meet and establish a clear system of terminology and processes. This can be a marriage of two different terminology sets based on what’s most applicable. It’s also helpful to articulate areas where you should retain different terminology, usually in areas where sales and marketing don’t have crossover tasks.

It also helps to have sales and marketing explain their respective processes and terminology to each other. Sales teams might know how to build trust through B2B sales, but the marketing team might only know what that looks like from a content perspective. Take the time to bridge the knowledge gap. Both sides will appreciate being on the same wavelength.

A significant area of crossover is your ideal client profile. A well-rounded ICP will drive all your other smarketing tips and alignment to bring your disparate teams together.

4. Centralize sales and marketing communication

What’s the cliche about two ships passing in the night? If you communicate on two different platforms, you can title those ships your sales and marketing teams, respectively.

One of the worst contributors to sales and marketing misalignment is miscommunication, so take the time to centralize your communication platforms. That way, your key stakeholders never miss conversations. Plus, it limits gossip by virtue of driving transparency.

The best way to do this is through one of the collaboration tools you’re already using to bring your teams in sync. Email is an old standby, but for water-cooler casual conversations, nothing beats Slack. It goes one step beyond formal communication and gives your teams a chance to get to know each other, making them more comfortable working together.

5. Develop full-funnel content

Both sales and marketing teams use funnels. They’re just slightly different, or rather, they address customers at different stages–a marketing funnel is a high-level strategy to drive awareness of your products. In contrast, a sales funnel drives customers to take action on your products.

To drive sales and marketing communication (and smarketing goal alignment), you need to focus on full-funnel content rather than separating sales and marketing content into two separate funnels. This allows the marketing team to run better analytics to find out where prospects drop out, enabling the sales team to better move prospects along the funnel.

The tools you need for effective marketing communication

Effective sales and marketing communication begins with the right tools. Tools that get your team on the same page, operating on the same frequency, and working toward the same goals.

At Kompass, we drive sales and marketing solutions so that your teams can take a holistic approach to data and customer results. Like our CRM apps to link your data to Salesforce and make informed data-driven decisions or our EasyBusiness online prospecting toolkit with a database of more than 53 million companies.

If you want to do sales and marketing right, our team is here to make it possible. So, let’s talk about how your teams can start smarketing.

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