Lost opportunities cannot be avoided when the sales and marketing teams work independently. Also, leads are lost and different messages are delivered. Thus, revenue suffers.
A crm for sales and marketing serves as the bridge that connects these two critical departments, turning disconnected efforts into a coordinated strategy that drives real business results.
Sales and marketing departments that have a strong alignment will get a 20% annual growth rate, while the ones with poor alignment will suffer a 4% decline in revenue. Additionally, the aligned teams report 38% higher sales win rates, and they receive more revenue from their marketing efforts.
However, only a handful of companies do have perfectly aligned departments.
This is not the problem of a lack of effort, however. The marketing teams are responsible for generating leads, running campaigns, and building brand awareness. The sales teams are responsible for pursuing prospects, signing deals, and nurturing relationships. When all these activities are carried out independently, the outcomes will still be less than expected.
Marketing produces content without any awareness of the objections that sales team members encounter daily. Salespeople are not aware of which campaigns brought the hottest leads to them. Customer information is scattered across different spreadsheets and disconnected tools.
Communication improvement is not the answer. It is a matter of establishing a defined system to improve team collaboration with crm tools, in which both teams operate from the same page, have access to the same customer data, and share the same objectives.
Think of a crm for sales team collaboration as a single source of data that ends the guesswork between departments.
Whenever marketing starts a campaign, they will be doing the whole process in the CRM from beginning to end. Who were the recipients of the opened emails? What materials did the potential customers obtain through downloading? At what point in the sales funnel did they leave?
The sales departments will have access to this whole history as soon as they make the call. They would be aware of the exact words that appealed to the prospect, the exact issue that the prospect was concerned about, and the exact time that it would be good to contact him.
Such transparency benefits both sides. On the one hand, marketing can track the leads which eventually turn into customers, get to know which campaigns yield the highest quality prospects, and identify the areas where their input generates the most pipeline value.
A single crm to streamline sales and marketing workflows eliminates these barriers by centralizing all customer interactions in one place.
All the activities related to a certain customer such as emails sent, calls made, meetings scheduled and deals closed will be recorded automatically without any manual intervention. The time-consuming question "did anyone follow up with that lead?" will not arise anymore. There will be no duplicate outreach and no leads will be lost due to lack of communication between marketing and sales.
There are CRMs that are not made for collaboration. So, despite being good in managing contacts, they keep the teams in isolation. The correct platform has the necessary attributes that are meant to connect the sales and marketing teams.
Improving team collaboration with crm tools starts with agreement on what makes a good lead.
By using modern CRMs, the collaboration between marketing and sales is enhanced. If a customer has participated in a webinar or downloaded a resource, then the marketing team will get credit accordingly and if not, then they will not. The sales team will also assess the situation based on the factors of the company being large or small, the fit industry, and the authority to buy.
The software will automatically notify when the leads have reached the threshold that has been set. The marketing department is aware that these leads are ready for the next step. The sales department is aware that they are receiving potential customers who indeed match their ideal customer profile.
Thus, the long-standing conflict between marketing and sales is completely resolved, where marketing accuses that sales are not following up, and sales that marketing is sending worthless leads.
In sales, timing is crucial. If a prospect checks your proposal at 3 AM, it’s good to know. If they go to your pricing page three times in one day, they are showing that they want to buy. A collaborative CRM records such signals immediately and notifies the concerned team members.
Sales representatives are informed about potential customers with the highest interest. The marketing department knows which promotions are attracting the most interested visitors. The whole team is updated on each other’s activities without having to conduct frequent meetings to discuss the status.
Marketing teams have to show their influence on company revenue. On the other hand, sales teams want to know what is the best way to sell their products.
CRM features that boost sales and marketing performance include thorough attribution reporting that relates every closed deal to its original marketing source.
Was that high paying customer acquired through a Google advertisement, a LinkedIn post, or by a recommendation? What webinar topic created the biggest pipeline? Which email sequence has the highest conversion rate?
Ultimately, these insights are the basis for marketers' strategies to rather concentrate on their successful activities and get rid of those that are not working. Besides, they provide sales with information on which campaigns to back up and which messages to paraphrase.
Sales representatives typically take a lot of time to look for presentation, case study, or product sheet that fits best. On the other hand, the marketing department produces documents that are not going to be of any use as the sales department is not even aware of their existence.
This issue gets solved by a CRM that comes with a shared content library. The marketing department uploads every asset, gives it the right tags, and makes sure it is up to date. The sales department has access to everything from a single location and is able to tell which materials are the most effective.
Some sophisticated systems also go so far as to monitor the use of the content. The marketing department learns which sales materials actually contribute to closing deals and not just which ones are visually appealing.
The transition from marketing to sales is the stage where the majority of chances are lost.
A potential customer submits information on your site. The marketing department is informed about it. They check the lead's quality. They give it to sales. Sales get the lead after some days during which the probability has already become a rival's customer.
Marketing tools that are automated completely remove such stoppages in communication. The moment a lead qualifies, the system not only makes a task for the sales person but also sends out a notification and even proposes the best time for the call considering the lead's timezone and behavior patterns.
Having to switch among your email, Slack, and CRM brings about a barrier in workflow. Significant talks are not traced anymore. Understanding is no longer present.
Contemporary customer relationship management systems have incorporated communication and note-sharing facilities. The sales department can directly involve the marketing department in a deal wrap-up to inquire about the campaign. The marketing department on the other hand might give feedback on the popular topics they are discovering in the analytics. All these discussions are happening just beside the relevant customer information.
Sales staff do not sit at the desks. They are going to meet customers, taking part in conventions, and doing business from any place deals are made.
A CRM that is mobile-friendly enables remote teams to stay in touch with each other. They will be able to change the status of the deals, record notes from the meetings and look up the history of the customers using their mobile phones. The marketing department is kept updated about these changes and can therefore tweak the campaigns based on the situation.
Both teams need to understand where revenue is coming from and where it's going.
Shared pipeline dashboards show marketing how their campaigns fill the funnel. They see which deal stages need more support and can create targeted content to help move opportunities forward.
Sales sees how marketing efforts translate into actual pipeline value. They can forecast more accurately because they understand the full picture of incoming opportunities.
Not all customers are the same. The message that resonates with enterprise buyers won't work for small businesses.
A collaborative CRM lets both teams segment customers based on any criteria such as industry, company size, behavior, purchase history, or engagement level.
Marketing creates targeted campaigns for each segment. Sales prioritizes outreach based on segment potential. Everyone works more efficiently because they're not treating every prospect the same way.
Metrics such as impressions and click-through rates are very much appreciated in Marketing. Conversion rates and deal velocity are the metrics on which Sales team should focus. However, the story is not complete by any of the two sets of metrics.
The right CRM plays the role of a bridge with its visual aids which reveal the relationship of sales outcomes with the marketing metrics. The whole team gets the chance to explore how campaign engagement predicts deal size, or how response time influences close rates.
Through these mutual insights, natural discussions regarding optimization arise. Rather than fortifying their positions, the teams work hand-in-hand in the area of raising the metrics that matter most, that is, revenue and acquisition of customers, to the next level.
Over the years, firms have lost a lot due to the sales and marketing gap. A crm for sales and marketing doesn't merely maintain a database of companies and contacts or monitor transactions but rather brings about a single system where each team supports the others with complete visibility to the goals of the company.
Sales and marketing team can carry on with their activities at the same pace if they use the same platform, consequently, the leads are moved faster, consistent messages are sent out, and the company enjoys a predictable revenue growth.
Are you looking for a solution to get past the barriers that separate your sales team from your marketing team? Get a free demo with Workpex and learn how a proper CRM can increase the cooperation between those departments and the speed of your growth. Experience how the combination of efficient workflows and strong insights can provide your team with the necessary advantage over your competitors.
