With marketing now
playing a more strategic role in organizations as they seek to align closer to
their buyers, there seems to be this notion that sales has now become less
important and that marketing is now poised to unseat sales as the preeminent
department.
While marketing
indeed needs to transform in order to meet the needs of the modern buyer, I do
believe it is rather premature to so readily dismiss sales and relegate them to
the back seat. Today’s B2B buying process has changed dramatically and in most
cases, the buyer leads more of the buying process than ever before. However, this
change does not mean that sales is irrelevant. What it does mean,
however, is that just like their marketing counterparts, sales also needs to
adapt to the new Buyer 2.0 world in which we currently live.
One of the areas
where sales need to be more involved/adapt, is in the development of demand
generation strategies. Having sales involved in this process is a change
that both marketing and sales will have to make and it is necessary for sales
to be involved. I spoke to a director of demand generation last past week about
their approach to demand generation and he asked, “How do we get sales to take
time out of their day-to-day jobs to get involved?”
The answer was
pretty simple . . . you ask them.
The truth is that
many marketing departments have designed marketing campaigns, content and
go-to-market activities all without any input from sales and are then
incredulous when sales does not respond favorably. Conversely, many sales teams
have resisted the notion that they should have to be involved in the developmental
stages of marketing at all and simply want a chance to lend approvals before
programs are launched. This is not only unrealistic, but it only causes greater
misalignment between marketing and sales departments.
To ensure that
marketing and sales are working together in the development of perpetual demand
generation programs a few things need to happen:
1. Remember it
is about the buyer
Too many
organizations take an inside-out view of their buying process and in developing
insights into their buyers. This is where things can start to fall apart. Sales
does indeed have a unique perspective on buyers, but if this is the only view
taken, it is one that is too internally focused and cannot deliver a true
buyers perspective. At the end of the day, demand generation is all about
educating and qualifying the buyer and if the buyer’s perspective is not
accounted for, it is at best, guesswork.
2. Marketing
& Sales Are Equally Important But Have Different Roles
Both marketing and
sales play equal but different roles in the development of demand generation
strategies. There is no doubt that marketing’s role in the development of
content, demand generation and customer experience has grown in stature and
importance of late, but one of the overarching goals of marketing is to pass
highly qualified opportunities to sales. Marketing and sales have different and
equally important roles and when the two departments stop competing, the sales
and marketing process becomes more fluid.
3. Sales Must
Be Enabled & Educated
As buyers today
consume more content, involve more people in the purchase journey and take
longer to engage sales than before, it is vital that sales understand the
context to how that buyer (qualified opportunity) was routed to them for
follow-up. While in the majority of instances the buyers purchase path will be
digital, there still exists (in most cases) the intersection of digital with human
interaction. One of the key roles of marketing is to educate and enable sales
to continue the conversation by knowing the path the buyer took digitally or
otherwise. Continuity of the buying conversation is key to sales success and it
is the responsibility of marketing to enable sales to have this.
The times have
changed for marketing and sales and no longer are sales the only leader.
Marketing is vital to any sales organization and both departments need to make
some serious changes to adapt to the buyer of today. The time to do this is now
as buyers are continuing to grow in sophistication and complexity, and those
organizations that respond quickly and adapt will have the competitive
advantage to those that remain static.
Article From: www.funnelholic.com
