But, in today’s turbulent marketing and sales landscape, marketers must do more: they have to be strategists who support business priorities and increase ROI. They have to be savvy technologists who track and capitalize on the most effective tools in their field. And they have to work as scientists demonstrating accountability and decision-driven action.
This is why marketing plays a pivotal role when it comes to sales. Not only are they responsible for improving their processes to achieve marketing success, but they also have to act as key enables of the sales process.
Below is a list of four things that every marketer needs in order to enable sales to sell more.
1. Alignment with Sales
One of the biggest challenges that organizations face is aligning their sales and marketing processes. According to Aberdeen Research, companies which are best-in-class at aligning marketing and sales experienced an average of 20% growth in annual revenue. What it means to align sales and marketing is employing the processes that create common sets of definitions of what each stage of the sales funnel looks like. At what point does a prospect become a marketing-ready lead? At what point does it become sales-ready? When both departments are speaking the same language, marketing is better able to identifying each stage of the buyer’s journey and craft messages accordingly.
2. Analytics
The more data-driven we are, the more successful we will be. This is important to understand as only 9% of marketers say their digital marketing is effective. What was once based on decisions made on a whim and without real, hard metrics, is today based on science. Marketers are responsible for showing results on the bottom line in the boardroom and analytics is the means to that end. To be successful, we need to continuously measure and analyze conversion rates in order to drop efforts that don’t yield results while duplicating more of what works. This is a critical process for marketing in their feat to enable sales.
3. Marketing Automation
Marketing automation enables marketers to get rid of the tedious, repetitive tasks of marketing and automate their entire processes. Instead of spending time using spreadsheets, marketing is able to make their campaigns run on ‘auto-pilot’. According to ANNUITAS Group, businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads. Marketing automation is a must-have tool for marketing teams that have adopted the understanding that they are key to sales enablement.
4. Access to CRM
Many sales organizations would argue that the most critical tool for customer conversion is a CRM. A CRM is a database of data on each prospect and customer. What traditionally was used as a data-gathering tool for sales reps, is today just as important for marketers and their own success. When marketing has access to customer data, they are able to deliver more targeted campaigns that reach out to prospects on a more personalized level. A CRM is a must-have tool for marketers who want to see more conversions.
Marketing is most successful in an environment that holds the premise that the marketing team is essential to the process of closing more deals. How effective are you at enabling your sales team? Are you confident enough in your processes to enable your sales force?