As a Marketing and Branding specialist, I often get asked what is the relationship between sales and marketing? That is an awesome question to explore as you begin your journey to entrepreneurship. As a first step, you want to think about what both Sales and Marketing really are. Sales are all the activities that are involved in the selling or promoting of goods and services. Marketing is the process you define to help promote, sell and get your products and services into the hands of your ideal target audience. It’s important to understand that there is a direct correlation and that both of these ideas work together in creating success for your new business.
What role do sales and marketing and their teams play in forming a good relationship? Well let’s explore this a little more. When you have a good marketing strategy in place for your new product, it raises awareness, interest, discussion and appetite for its targeted audience. A good marketing strategy makes it easier for a sale to occur. Both Marketing and Sales teams should set goals and really be sure that those goals are understood by the other party. That is one of the first ways for both departments to align themselves with an eventual powerful sales result.
Oftentimes, the roles of marketing and sales teams can overlap. To help bring some clarity to it, a sales team is responsible to take the warm leads produced by a marketing strategy and convert them. As a result, follow-up is an important responsibility of a sales team. The sales team is also responsible for closing the deal. Their focus should be to turn leads into customers. Marketing on the other hand is responsible to find the qualified leads and set them up for sales. Tactics that help customers to understand the value, benefits or advantages of a product are key in creating qualified leads for a sales department. A good marketing strategy will also ensure that a product or service solves a problem for its ideal client. Once the sales job does its magic and converts the lead, they need to then think of their approach to keep that client engaged and buying. A Sales team plays a very valuable role in the retention process. While both work in tandem to keep a customer, the sales team is generally more focused on checking in, staying in touch and keeping the customer apprised of changes, updates and new features. This also becomes part of an upsell process. The marketing team provides the tools or strategies to do this. For example, maybe its reviews or a referral program. There are so many retention tactics that are valuable and can keep customers along for the long-term ride.
As mentioned earlier, Marketing needs to produce qualified leads for a sales team. That can be done through awareness tactics like PR. Products and services that get a lot of media attention, typically tend to be more favorable in the eyes of the consumer. A lot of times, media equates to status. Branding is another tool that promotes awareness. The more people see your logo or get a clearer understanding of your mission, vision, and long-term growth strategy, the more they are inclined to stay loyal to you if all of that resonates with them. Another great way that Marketing can turn people into qualified leads to support sales is through engagement. Building conversations in communities with the customer and having them feel connected to the brand is one of the greatest marketing strategies you can deploy as an Entrepreneur. Engaged customers are loyal customers. Stay connected to your customers and always share your story with them. Once they feel connected, you have won half the battle.
Relationship building plays a role in both a sales and marketing strategy. On the marketing side, it is critical to find opportunities to connect with your audience so that they trust you and your message. Most people buy from an emotional place, so it is so important to be sure that you have done your Market Research and understand who the ideal target audience is for your product. By ensuring you have identified the ideal target audience, you make it easier for a sales team to convert them. They are already qualified. On the sales side, the relationship is also important because, if you can continue a journey of trust and connection with your audience, you increase the chances of being able to convert them into a client. Think of the pushy car salesman that most of us hate. We know that typically their strategy is sales based, it doesn’t necessarily come from an altruistic place and that is why many of them are perceived in a negative fashion. The more genuine you can be in your sales and marketing strategy, the more chances you have to foster a sale and actually retain a customer that can be a customer for a long term.
Remember, Technology also plays a role in the relationship with sales and marketing. Technology like CRM systems for example are great for tracking, managing and analyzing your entire business process including sales and marketing efforts. It brings marketing and sales together in one place in order to piggyback off one another to ensure a seamless experience for your customer. It’s very important for ensuring that all data, marketing or sales is working together for the greater good and can be tracked and measured.
Was this helpful in learning more about marketing and sales and how they work together? If you have any questions or want to learn more about this topic, email us at [email protected]. We would love to chat with you.
