Why You Should Implement Smarketing In Your Business

For as long as I can remember, sales and marketing departments have rarely gotten along.

And today, in the age of inbound marketing, it absolutely baffles me as why companies don’t align these departments better.

Do Any Of These Statements Sound Familiar In Your Organization?

The marketing department might say about sales:

• Our sales reps are incompetent
• Salespeople have a one-track mind
• At the end of the day, all they care about is the sale and their commission
• Once the sale is made, they are done and off to the next deal

The sales department might say about marketing:

• Hey marketing department, create something that we can use to sell more stuff
• It’s your job to get me more leads
• You guys have no idea what it’s like selling out there
• People in marketing are just a bunch of paper pushers and are overpaid

Up until now, there has been very little alignment between to two camps, but I am here to tell you, dear business person, this has got to change!

Why Marketing Needs To Help Sales

Because being in sales is a tough job… a very stressful job!

Every month, every quarter, your sales team has to meet their sales goals and generate new business! So how are you going to help them dear marketing department?  Generating revenue, after all, is what makes it possible to pay salaries for marketing personnel.

Sales and Marketing Success Comes Only When Both Sides Work Towards Shared Goals!

When marketing and sales work together, they become smarter. And that’s the first step on your way to achieving “Smarketing” success. Sales and marketing must equally buy-in on a process, and combine forces to help the company reach its goals.

Also, just like your sales department, the marketing department should have quotas as well. The quotas can be directly tied to sales numbers, but other items may be blog posts, content, and other marketing materials.

Where Do We Get Started? Try Setting SMART Goals!

What are S.M.A.R.T. goals?

• Specific: Both departments need to be very specific, and deadlines must be set. People on both sides need to be accountable
• Measurable: Once you set your goals… you have to be able to track them
• Attainable: Be realistic. Challenge yourself, but make sure the goals are possible
• Realistic: Know your team members, and know what their limitations are. Be honest in what you can do, and don’t create unnecessary hurdles
• Time-bound: You have to set a deadline. Period!

In order to attain Smarketing success, communication and collaboration are absolutely critical. Both sides must be on the same page at all times, and know what each respective team is doing.

An Aberdeen Group study in 2010 stated:

"Companies with a strong alignment between sales and marketing achieve 20% annual revenue growth, compared to a 4% decline in annual revenues for companies with poor alignment."

Granted, this is from 2010, and the data may be a bit different now, but no matter what, this is a huge difference. A huge gap! Even if your numbers are not as high as this, does it not make sense to deploy Smarketing tactics and see where you end up? It surely can’t be worse than where you are now, right?

At the end of the day, it is the job of the marketing department to get better-qualified leads handed off to the sales department; we refer to these as Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL).  And through Smarketing tactics, and some awesome inbound marketing, this can absolutely be done!

In this post, I kind of picked on the marketing department, but you are not off the hook, sales teams.

In future posts, we will expand on Smarketing and discuss:

• How sales can help marketing
• What inbound marketing strategies will help generate leads
• Dive deeper into what qualifies as a marketing-qualified lead
• How to set up marketing automation to help you achieve your goals
• And more...

Until next time,

Doc