Many companies used to think of their sales and marketing teams and functions as two independent organizations.
Marketers’ goal in this scenario is to create content and promote the firm to generate as many leads as possible, leaving the sales staff to try to convert these leads into customers.
In the worst-case circumstances, the two teams may have little comprehension of each other’s strategy or day-to-day work, and may even look down on one another.
But did you realize that conducting marketing and sales in this manner might result in the loss of leads and customers? If these two divisions work together, your company can do so much more.
Enter smarketing.
What Is Smarketing?
Smarketing is the process of a company’s sales and marketing operations becoming integrated.
| SALES + MARKETING = SMARKETING |
Get it?
The goal is for sales and marketing to be completely aligned, so they can work together to achieve similar goals and increase revenue.
Now you might be thinking – Who coined the term smarketing? It is quite genius, I’ll admit.
The credit goes to Dan Tyre and Mike Volpe of HubSpot. They came up with it way back in 2007, so it’s not exactly a new thing in the business world.
Why Is Smarketing Important?
Simply put, you should be concerned with smarketing since it will aid your company’s success.
According to 2010 research, organizations with tightly integrated sales and marketing activities saw a yearly revenue increase of 20% on average.
Smarketing also helps your company to provide a better customer experience. Customers receive the correct communications and information at the right time if marketing and sales teams collaborate closely.
You might have severe problems if your sales and marketing teams aren’t in sync or don’t see each other as partners.
Your marketers won’t be able to focus their efforts in the proper spot and bring in the sort of quality leads required unless they have a thorough grasp of sales goals and how the team achieves them.
Your salespeople will be ill-equipped to turn those leads into clients if they don’t understand and contribute to the marketing plan.
None of this is conducive to consumer happiness, staff morale, or profitability.
Adopting smarketing will allow both teams to fully employ their expertise to propel your company forward.
Five Steps to Implementing a Smart Smarketing Strategy
Okay, it’s time to answer the big question – How do you do smarketing?
In this section, I will share the top 5 smarketing steps you can take to implement a smarketing strategy.
#1- Identify your starting point and define goals
How effectively do your two teams already collaborate? They may have a rather good connection, but the processes can be improved. Alternatively, they might be completely out of alignment, which requires a major refurbishment.
To determine your smarketing baseline, consider the following questions:
- If the sales and marketing teams meet at all, how often do they do so?
- Do the two teams’ meetings tend to be constructive?
- Outside of official meetings, how frequently and in what ways do the two teams communicate?
- What is the status of the department leaders’ relationship?
- What do the two teams have to say about each other? Your response should take into consideration both informal concerns and things you’ve heard around the office, as well as any official criticism you get from both sides.
- What proportion of your marketing team’s leads are regularly followed up on by your sales team? If this number is low, it suggests an issue with either the way leads are distributed or the follow-up procedure.
- What proportion of followed-up leads result in a conversion? Poor-quality leads have a high follow-up rate but a low conversion rate.
Start working on your smarketing plan once you’ve got a baseline indication of how things are going.
Begin by determining your objectives.
Your goals should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.
A terrible objective is “I’d like my sales and marketing teams to become better coordinated.”
A SMART objective is “I’d like to improve communication between my sales and marketing teams and see a 10% increase in revenue by the end of this year.”
#2 – Build smarketing into your culture
You can’t expect everything to change overnight if your strategy has been to have distinct and diverse sales and marketing teams. It takes time and effort to change a corporate culture, but it is well worth it, and the sooner you begin, the better.
Any shift in a company’s direction can only work if everyone is involved in its success, so make sure to involve everyone.
Starting with the chiefs of the two departments and senior executives, use a top-down strategy.
Obtaining the support of these important individuals will be crucial in executing the new strategy across the teams and the firm.
Explain why you’re switching to a smarketing strategy and what you’ll gain from it.
Request that everyone express any issues they may have, that you pay attention to their concerns and that you do everything you can to resolve them.
People are more likely to respond favorably to changes and accept the new approach if they believe you are listening to them.
#3 – Schedule regular meetings with sales and marketing
Communication is essential in all forms of interactions, whether professional or personal.
Meetings between your sales and marketing teams should be held on a regular basis. In most companies, once a week will suffice.
The two teams can use this time to discuss their accomplishments and issues, analyze recent campaigns, brainstorm new ideas, and evaluate how they are performing in terms of their monthly, quarterly, or yearly goals.
A representative from your sales team can also attend meetings with the marketing team, and vice versa. This can be a new individual each time, and they can report back to the rest of the team any important information.
#4 – Implement an unambiguous data-sharing agreement
All of the important decisions you make in your organization should be based on data. Data allows you to better analyze your website traffic, ad campaign success or failure, and much more.
If the sales and marketing teams are to collaborate effectively, they must share the same comprehensive data sets. If you don’t have one, the ideal method to achieve this is with an integrated CRM database.
Choose a technology that allows you to manage your sales funnel, automate your digital marketing, and track your analytics, all in one location.
However, simply having access to the data is insufficient.
You need a clear and well-communicated plan for how that data is used and how it impacts crucial business decisions to effectively harness its value.
#5 – Use collaborative tools
Make use of the resources you have to facilitate collaboration between the two teams.
These technologies are especially beneficial for remote teams, but they may also be beneficial if you are all together in the same location.
In most firms, frequent usage of email has become the standard, and you should promote open lines of email contact between your two teams.
You may go even a step further and set up a shared team email address (for example, smarketing@yourcompanyname.com).
This improves team cohesiveness, enabling frequently accessible papers or information to be saved in a single account, and shows clients that your sales and marketing teams are closely integrated.
Conclusion
Sales and marketing are the two most important sectors in your organization when it comes to bringing in customers and boosting your profit.
But none of them can do anything on their own.
For both teams – and your firm – to attain their full potential, they need a well-coordinated plan, a collaborative partnership, and integrated procedures.
When these two roles operate together, they are bigger than the sum of their parts. Try a smarketing strategy and you’ll see what I mean.
Smarketing is effective… but only if sales and marketing are willing to put in the effort.
Active and open communication between the two departments is the secret ingredient to success.