Enterprise Marketing: Sales and Marketing Alignment

A Basic Problem with Enterprise Marketing is Sales and Marketing Alignment

Enterprise marketing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Successful campaigns are done in close concert with your company’s sales team. That way, the two sets of goals are aligned, ensuring that the marketing messages flow into the approaches taken by your sales team.

The first step is to get the marketing and sales teams in the same room so that they can set some direction from a 30,000 foot level. This includes setting up their goals as well as the ways that they will be measured and the processes that will hopefully accomplish them.

Next, both teams can work together on tactics to execute the big picture enterprise marketing strategy. These include deciding which personas the company wants to target and choosing which messages to send out as a part of the inbound marketing process. Your two teams also will need to work together to define their systems for managing leads as they come in and work their way through the marketing process and sales funnel.

An aligned process also requires clearly set out definitions for when and how leads enter the sales funnel. These definitions guide the marketing team as to when a lead leaves their sphere of influence while also letting the sales team know when they should start working with a prospect.

Merely having an enterprise marketing and sales team work together isn’t enough, either. Alignment also requires the right tools, and requires them to work together. Successful inbound marketing campaigns typically lean on marketing automation software that handle the process of scheduling, targeting and tracking outbound marketing messages. On the other hand, sales teams spend large quantities of time working with their customer relationship management applications. When the marketing automation software and CRM packages work together with the rest of your company’s ERP or business intelligence suite, you position yourself for success.

Once the systems are built, they are only as good as the people using them. The companies that most successfully use inbound enterprise marketing invest in training for both their marketing and sales teams. When each team understands both their own tools and the other side’s application, they are better able to find synergies and effectively convert leads to sales.

One of the cornerstones of an aligned sales and enterprise marketing program is to have the right marketing automation software. We recently completed a detailed comparison of the industry’s leading applications for inbound marketing automation. Contact us here to download your own copy.

Marketing Matters Inbound?is an inbound marketing firm specializing in online conversions, content?strategy, call-to-action mapping and traditional media placement. Our experience in?B2B digital?marketing?and?traditional media?allows us to deliver results through a strategic media mix. We believe in?aligning and merging marketing and sales/operations for optimal return on your marketing investment.