If you’ve ever heard someone use the term smarketing before, it’s just a synergistic way of combining sales and marketing. Regardless of how you may feel about the name, what it stands for is pretty important in the realm of successful lead generation. At the end of the day, your sales and marketing departments are more effective when they align their services, rather than “compete” in silos. Here’s why, and how smarketing can benefit your team.
Prospecting
Sales and marketing reps tend to disagree when it comes to prospecting lingo. This is because both are thinking about leads at different stages in the buyer’s journey. Marketers want to engage; sales reps want to close. Both actions are essential, but it’s easy for each side to think that how they accomplish their respective action is better. Why? Simply because that’s the part of the process they’re most familiar with.
Instead, have both sides pool their knowledge. Marketers can learn from Sales about the pain points that are important to leads, which they can then use to write better prospecting emails. Sales reps can learn what types of marketing messages connect well with new leads, and how they can personalize their own sales pitches to build on that information once those leads are qualified.
Content Development
It’s not uncommon for a lot of people to want to put their stamp of approval on the brand content that gets published, particularly when it comes to emails or blogs. This is especially true in smaller companies that may not have fully defined sales and marketing departments, so these responsibilities are shared or overlap.
The problem isn’t the sharing of ideas, it’s when content gets stuck in a cycle of delayed approval. This limits your brand exposure, and makes it less likely that each department’s messaging will be aligned. For example, Sales may be promoting a special product or service on their phone calls that have no relation to the emails or blogs that Marketing finally got approved to go out.
Instead, it helps if a small team of sales and marketing reps work together to flesh out a content schedule. This means both departments get equal representation, share their expertise, compromise on the appropriate language, and have enough time to approve and schedule.
How to Make Smarketing Work
What are the best ways to encourage Marketing and Sales to cooperate?
- Schedule regular meetings. It might seem like a no-brainer, but make the time to meet with both teams and share feedback on their performance. Look at what Marketing has been emailing or posting, along the relevant digital analytics those pieces of content have been producing. Sales can share the leads that they’ve been having the most success with, what those interactions have been like, and the key takeaways from leads they were able to close.
- Shadow each department. These days, notes HubSpot, remote work makes it easier than ever for marketers to listen in on sales calls to understand their buyer personas even more. The same goes for sharing marketing emails and responses with Sales, whether those involve your prospects or your established leads.
What matters most is cooperation. Getting both departments to work together keeps everyone on the same page, maintains brand consistency, and creates a more reliable funnel of qualifying and closing your best leads.
Want More Smarketing Tips?
If you have questions about how to create a stronger partnership between Sales and Marketing, and what digital solutions those can foster, we’d be happy to share what we’ve seen work well in your industry. Click the link below to schedule a free marketing consultation.
Not looking to bring on the efforts of a full-service marketing agency? Consider the benefits of consulting with a Fractional CMO instead — then let us know if you’d like to talk with ours!
