Sales and marketing alignment for tech companies
Shorten the buying cycle
Innovative technology brands face myriad challenges when working to document their prospects’ buyer journey. Here, we’ll uncover the full value of sales and marketing alignment.
When your marketing and sales folks step out of their silos and clearly see their mutual goals and the path they’ll take to get there, their individual and collective efforts become a lot more effective.
When you align your marketing and sales team, your sales cycle gets shorter, and your marketing efforts are easier to track and measure.
The model below illustrates the challenge when sales and marketing teams operate as separate divisions. Each tells your brand story in its own individual way. Your salespeople feel they have no need for your marketing materials, and your marketing folks see the sales team as renegades who will not toe the company line.
Marketing tosses prospects over the wall to sales. The sales division works to close the deal with no help from marketing.
When you shift your company perspective to see marketing and sales as interlocking parts rather than separate divisions, the benefits go right to the bottom line. Your marketing people will continue to concentrate efforts on the front end of the buyer journey, and your salespeople will remain the closers. However, both departments are engaged and support one another through every step of the buyer journey.
Meaningful marketing and sales alignment efforts engage the sales team in shaping your brand’s voice, gaining their support for your marketing materials before they’re developed, and ensuring they’ll actually use them. Your marketing team will better understand your actual customers, not just archetypes. The newfound cohesion will allow you to more effectively track how well your marketing works through each buyer journey phase.
Move the needle
Think of sales and marketing alignment as a spectrum, not a pass-or-fail equation. Wherever you currently fall on the spectrum, there's always room for improvement. Even moving the needle incrementally can yield big results. Dedicating time and resources to assessing and addressing sales and marketing alignment is always a good investment.
{{OrangeQuote | ABOUT TOM CAMPBELL | Tom is Toolbox’s co-founder and creative director. When he’s not validating the merits of ordering pizza for lunch at the office, Tom can be found tending beer league hockey or playing drums for local bar bands. He’s also the keeper of TomLovesTheLibertyBell.com, a quirky repository of stories and stats on Liberty Bell replicas around the world.}}
{{OrangeQuote | ABOUT TOOLBOX CREATIVE | Toolbox Creative is a B2B Brand Engineering firm helping cool people in Additive Manufacturing, CleanTech and Emerging Technologies change the world. We distill complex technologies into powerful identity systems, websites and marketing tactics that create lasting impact and build brand love.}}
