Why marketing and sales must work together

To maximise business success

The fundamental point of business is to sell your services and products to consumers.

Sales and Marketing Teamwork

Without sales, there would be no business. However, if the sales process is not backed up and supported by marketing, then success is unlikely to follow.

Marketing exists in order to make the sales process easier, helping the company to generate extra leads. Unfortunately, sales and marketing teams often don’t plan to work together and this can lead to wasted marketing expenditure. According to Aberdeen Group Research, 80% of marketing and sales efforts are wasted because of sales and marketing falling out.

If you wish to improve the effectiveness of your lead generation, it is important to enhance that sales-marketing relationship by focusing on communication and collaboration.

Here are 5 reasons why marketing and sales should work effectively with each other:

Sales can help you gain customer insights

Your sales team talk to your customers regularly – what feedback are they getting from them? The marketing department should use these insights to enhance their marketing communications, which will help to attract the right future customers.

Marketing creates warm leads

If a sales person knows what marketing materials a prospect has viewed or clicked on, this can be a great topic to raise to generate conversation – a big leg up is much better than starting from zero.

Sales can help identify the right market

It is basic marketing that whatever product or service is making the most money, you promote it more. As they are on the front line, sales personnel can help identify what area of your business is generating the most profits and this can be fed back into the marketing strategy.

Marketing creates the image

Even if you’re the best sales person in the world and your products/services are of top quality, if your brand image does not reflect this, then it is unlikely that consumers will buy from you. Creating a strong physical impression with your marketing can help build the credibility of your business and invite customers in. This goes for inviting people to your shop, encouraging people to pick up the phone or when visiting your website.

Marketing can only work so far

While the marketing department’s job is to get people through the door, it does not mean a sale will be generated. Once marketing creates desire for a product/service and encourages people to get in touch with your organisation, it is then the job of the sales department to finalise that deal, giving them some much needed advice and turning a “maybe” into a “yes”.

When it comes to sales and marketing, we believe that collaboration is key. Each department should see revenue flow into the pipeline, and when your marketing and sales teams work together, you will then begin to see success flow through your business.

Rachael Smith is Marketing Manager for Fill the Gap Marketing in Lincoln and the 2015 winner of Young Business Person of the Year at the Lincolnshire Media Business Awards 2015. As a creative marketing professional with strong strategic and writing skills, and a 1st Class BA (Hons) graduate in Advertising & Marketing from the University of Lincoln, her ambition is to run her own marketing agency and help SMEs to grow.