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Sales and Marketing May Work Together, After All
July 21, 2008
Through cooperative collaboration, sales and marketing can raise profits substantially
By Jonathan Tannenbaum
Sales and marketing teams often seem like contentious relatives, fighting bitterly and avoiding contact. Beyond causing animosity, their refusals to cooperate damage business, costing companies an estimated $1 trillion in lost revenue every year. Intent on helping companies reverse missed opportunities, Marketo, a California-based management firm, offers a new on-demand product called "Lead Insight for Sales," which provides these respective groups a system for achieving cooperation.
Lead Insight for Sales helps managers create meaningful alignment by implementing a process known as "lead nurturing." Here, a company makes repeated interactions with potential buyers (PBs), and tracks their levels of interest, so reps can make the sales call at just the right time. Because Lead Insight records customer interactions across all online and offline channels, companies can develop leads more closely, increasing their chances of winning business.
Since marketers often identify leads, they can focus on cultivating the interest of PBs, making it easier for sales people to close accounts. Marketers may provide outreach after a potential client has visited a company's Web site, following up with additional information and then inviting that person to a Webinar. Lead Insight facilitates these activities and shows users what parts of a company's site PBs have visited, what keywords they searched under, as well as what information they've already downloaded.
Along with fostering collaboration between marketing and sales, Lead Insight directly assists the work of sales reps. It sends them instant notifications, detailing PB activity and prime opportunities for sales calls. The device also utilizes Microsoft Outlook and Salesforce.com, allowing reps to send out customized e-mail campaigns and gain a better knowledge of contacts.
Time for a Truce?
Such a tool promises great collaboration opportunities, but when push comes to shove, will sales and marketing actually put aside their differences and collaborate?
It's possible, says Phil Fernandez, President and CEO of Marketo. He believes that in order to achieve integration, change must flow from the top. "The first step in bridging this gulf requires commitment and leadership from sales and marketing executives, who need to unite around a common set of goals and metrics," asserts Fernandez.
Traditionally, both groups have offered knowledge and talent vital for producing revenue but have failed to cooperate, holding opposing views on the nature of the sales process, says Fernandez. By setting aside preconceived notions of marketing leads, sales cycles and departmental boundaries, he feels that sales and marketing will get in synch and develop trust. Lead Insight gives them a common framework, promoting the overarching concept of a "revenue cycle" that takes both a short-term and long-term view of the sales process.
Of course, when it comes to improving relations, collaborating on a few closed accounts never hurts. Fernandez notes that "If marketing brings sales a few good leads where people are really willing to buy then they’ll establish credibility. In order to pay off, it only has to be one or two."
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