{"id":13885,"date":"2022-01-14T16:07:19","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T13:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/?p=13885"},"modified":"2025-04-17T18:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T15:07:09","slug":"sales-and-marketing-alignment-smarketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/sales-and-marketing-alignment-smarketing\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Boost Revenue With Sales And Marketing Alignment: Smarketing Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It hurts to see how businesses with strong ambitions and all resources at their disposal get lost in the middle of the stairway to success because of one reason: their sales and marketing teams aren&#8217;t in the bunch.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it hurts even more to realize this misalignment can cost your company <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">over 1 trillion dollars per year<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and countless days wasted on unproductive prospecting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let&#8217;s discuss why any second of your time counts when it comes to aligning your sales and marketing processes and how to make both teams go together to bring you more revenue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"table-of-contents\">\n<p class=\"table-of-contents__title\">Outline:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#what\">What is sales and marketing alignment?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#why\">Why do you need Smarketing?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#strategies\">10 best Smarketing strategies<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#cases\">Inspiring use cases <\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<h2 id=\"what\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is sales and marketing alignment?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You&#8217;ve probably heard something about <\/span><b>Smarketing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, haven&#8217;t you?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This term is a combination of two words, &#8216;sales&#8217; and &#8216;marketing,&#8217; and it refers to the sales and marketing alignment strategy for achieving business growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smarketing consists in building a shared system of goals that enables both teams to perform as a unified organization.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-13888\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815085.png\" alt=\"Sales + Marketing = Smarketing\" width=\"850\" height=\"131\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815085.png 1500w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815085-300x46.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815085-1024x158.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815085-768x119.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sales and marketing departments often used to operate separately from each other. Marketing teams were responsible for the top of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/glossary\/sales-funnel\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">funnel<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, where the goal was to attract new leads. Meanwhile, sales teams owned the bottom of the funnel, where leads were handed over from a marketing team to close deals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-13889\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815489.png\" alt=\"Traditional marketing + sales funnel\" width=\"850\" height=\"594\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815489.png 1500w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815489-300x210.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815489-1024x715.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641815489-768x537.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But buyer&#8217;s habits have changed:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, <\/span><b>80%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of B2B purchase cycles are complete before the buyer considers contacting your company.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/business.linkedin.com\/marketing-solutions\/blog\/b2b-content-marketing\/2019\/b2b-content-marketing-forrester-findings?_lrsc=7db5b7fe-c283-442f-bf58-f217b07f40dc&amp;utm_source=social&amp;utm_medium=leap&amp;utm_campaign=linkedin&amp;src=li-leap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>68%<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of buyers prefer online research to communication with your sales team.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And <\/span><b>90%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of buyers won&#8217;t even answer your cold call!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Besides, your customers are constantly engaging with your brand \u2014 before they purchase and well after you close a deal. So, the &#8216;marketing first, sales next&#8217; linear process seems no longer effective.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smarketing is a new business reality<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smarketing functions like a family where both parents care about their child \u2014 a customer. Each parent contributes to another, while both build a common pattern of behavior.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let&#8217;s translate it to the sales and marketing alignment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <\/span><b>marketing team<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> supports a sales team by:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Making buyers aware of a company and its product<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nurturing and qualifying leads<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consistently engaging customers<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Providing data about the market and competitors.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <\/span><b>sales team<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, in their turn, contributes to marketing by sharing information about:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sales process efficiency<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Market dynamics<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Customer health (pain points and needs)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ideal customer profile<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>They intersect<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Building transparent goals and objectives<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ensuring smooth handoff between marketing-generated leads and sales<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maintaining positive <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/how-to-improve-customer-experience\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">customer experience<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Making cross-functional contributions to the go-to-market strategy.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-13926\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641851170.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"629\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641851170.png 1478w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641851170-300x222.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641851170-1024x757.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641851170-768x568.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"why\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why do you need Smarketing?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The primary justification for aligning your sales and marketing is that with Smarketing, you are able to face the challenges a complex buying cycle imposes on both teams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let&#8217;s find out what they are and how Smarketing may solve them.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Problem 1: Lead generation and handoff<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the widespread stories: a marketing team has generated hundreds of leads, but a sales team complained that they are not qualified enough. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lead generation<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is one of the most burning challenges businesses face, and that&#8217;s where numbers speak louder than words:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">About <\/span><b>79%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of marketing leads never convert into sales due to poor lead nurturing.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Only <\/span><b>56%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of B2B organizations properly validate leads before they are passed to sales.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.business2community.com\/b2b-marketing\/15-need-to-know-lead-qualification-stats-for-b2b-marketers-with-takeaways-02073532#:~:text=61%25%20of%20B2B%20marketers%20send,those%20leads%20will%20be%20qualified.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>61%<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of B2B marketers send all leads directly to sales, but a sales team touches only <\/span><b>27%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of them.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>How Smarketing helps solve it:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> By aligning sales and marketing, you&#8217;ll be able to agree on an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/glossary\/ideal-customer-profile\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ideal customer profile<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and lead qualification algorithms. This way, both teams will have a clear vision of who their leads are and how fast they should be acted on to engage interested customers and take all sales opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a result, you&#8217;ll improve lead generation and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/glossary\/lead-nurturing\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">lead nurturing<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> mechanisms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Problem 2: Sales content utilization<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similar to lead enrichment, sales may not hurry up to approve the content created and developed by marketers. In fact, <\/span><b>60-70%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of B2B content created is never used. In a scenario when sales make little or no input in content themselves, it fails to meet their needs and has no influence on deals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How Smarketing helps solve it: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By aligning your sales and marketing processes, your marketing team will get enough customer knowledge shared from sales and create content that will meet their needs, so they&#8217;ll adopt it for meeting their sales goals.<\/span><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Problem 3: Demonstrating ROI<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It isn&#8217;t easy to understand the actual value of your marketing and sales campaigns without measuring their performance. But how will you get to the real <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ROI<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of your business campaigns when sales and marketing are misaligned?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How Smarketing helps solve it:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Aligning both teams, you&#8217;ll track and measure results in an integrated way and have a more transparent view of a company&#8217;s performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Problem 4: Streamlining workflows<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When sales and marketing operate as entirely different organizations, there&#8217;s little opportunity to move the process forward from a stale point.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How Smarketing helps solve it: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alignment allows sharing tools, i.e., using the same platform for sales and marketing teams. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a result, team leaders access all customer data and metrics and analyze them in sync, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">speeding up your sales cycle<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Problem 5: Customer retention<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One thing is to acquire new customers, and another is to encourage them to return.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How Smarketing helps solve it: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By syncing sales and marketing, you&#8217;ll be able to get <\/span><b>36%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> higher customer retention rates. And by increasing these rates by at least 5%, you can grow your profits by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jiawertz\/2018\/09\/12\/dont-spend-5-times-more-attracting-new-customers-nurture-the-existing-ones\/?sh=704c651c5a8e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">25% up to 95%<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">!<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The game is worth the candle!<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By Aligning your sales and marketing processes and solving all the problems mentioned above, you&#8217;ll be able to:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Achieve <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.internalresults.com\/blog\/sales-and-marketing-alignment#:~:text=B2B%20firms%20with%20tightly%20aligned,content%20to%20send%20to%20prospects.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>24%<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> faster three-year revenue growth and <\/span><b>27%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> faster three-year profit growth.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Become up to <\/span><b>67%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> better at closing deals and enjoy <\/span><b>38%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> higher sales win rates.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enjoy up to <\/span><b>208%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> growth in marketing revenue.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-14031\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168650.png\" alt=\"Smarketing statistics\" width=\"650\" height=\"1103\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168650.png 850w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168650-177x300.png 177w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168650-603x1024.png 603w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168650-768x1304.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sounds impressive, doesn&#8217;t it?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"strategies\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to align sales and marketing to increase revenue: 10 best Smarketing strategies<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smarketing may work miracles, but aligning both teams isn&#8217;t an easy part. It involves a step-by-step process, takes time and much effort.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But we&#8217;ve got you covered! Here are 10 strategies that will help you get on the right track immediately and enjoy revenue growth in the long run.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1. Define common terms<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first step to achieving sales and marketing alignment is to agree on the standard terms. It seems logical, but in reality, only <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intandemly.com\/blog\/sales-and-marketing-alignment\/#:~:text=Agreeing%20on%20Definitions&amp;text=As%20per%20CSO%20Insights%2C%20only,lead%20between%20sales%20and%20marketing.&amp;text=Every%20company%20defines%20terms%20differently,reach%20agreement%20in%20doing%20so.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>44%<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of companies have decided on the definition of a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/glossary\/marketing-qualified-lead-mql\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">qualified lead<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> between their sales and marketing teams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And when it comes to lead scoring, for example, sales and marketing should come together to define the scorecard to have the same understanding of the lead&#8217;s position in the sales cycle and their fit to the business overall.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2. Set mutually agreed goals<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historically, marketing specialists are prone to more generalizing goals, say, the number of leads generated. At the same time, sales have a more individualistic view, e.g., closing a specific account. To align your sales and marketing, both teams should realize they are working towards achieving the same goals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This includes agreeing on the processes that should be put in place at each sales funnel stage and focusing on the key metrics they can measure and influence, such as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/conversion-rate-optimization\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">conversion rate<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or lead value.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3. Make a single customer journey<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the awareness stage to the decision <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">stage<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the customer journey, everything should be tied together and perceived by both sales and marketing teams as a single experience. This will allow them to stay in sync while tracking all customer interactions through the entire funnel.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">4. Agree on a buyer persona\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You won&#8217;t go far if your sales and marketing teams have a dissociated view of who your ideal customer is. Marketers may have done a great job by researching customers, they may have done an even greater job by engaging them with your brand. But they probably haven&#8217;t spoken to prospects and don&#8217;t clearly understand their real needs and pain points. Well, sales do. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To ensure both teams have the same vision of a customer from head to toe, they should agree on the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">buyer persona<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, marketers can use research to develop the initial buyer persona image, which will be further refined as soon as sales gather their input. Alternatively, sales and marketing can share a buyer persona document that will be living, always up-to-date, and accessible by both teams.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5. Coordinate content marketing together<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Content marketing is a very effective <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">B2B marketing strategy<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for nurturing prospects when used by sales and marketing.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The teams should analyze what content works best at each stage of the buyer&#8217;s journey and find any missing assets. Besides, it&#8217;s vital to let salespeople contribute their ideas to content development. This way, sales will better understand how to use it effectively while marketers will get valuable insights into what content to create to boost sales.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">6. Maintain a consistent marketing message\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The biggest mistake you can ever make is to let marketers tell one thing about your product or service and allow sales to speak about it differently.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mismatched messaging will give your customers nothing but a poor impression of your company. The latter, according to <\/span><b>21%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of B2B marketers, is one of the most detrimental factors resulting from poor sales and marketing alignment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_13892\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13892\" style=\"width: 850px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13892\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background345.png\" alt=\"The most detrimental factor resulting from poor sales and marketing alignment\" width=\"850\" height=\"663\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background345.png 1452w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background345-300x234.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background345-1024x798.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background345-768x599.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13892\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Source: SuperOffice<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ensure both teams have the same marketing message to communicate to your prospects. While marketers will be using it to warm up the audience, sales will reinforce its most resonating parts during their sales pitch \u2014 and close more deals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A critical point to remember is that your marketing message must be customer-centric and reflect your <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">value proposition<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Both sales reps and marketers should realize they are, first of all, bringing value to the customer, not just making them read an email or purchase a product by all means.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">7. Share reporting\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smarketing isn&#8217;t only about setting goals together. It&#8217;s also about tracking together how these goals have been achieved.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, while aligning your sales and marketing processes, think about tracking joint <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">KPIs<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and making the learnings of both teams transparent. This way, you&#8217;ll detect any weak areas in the customer acquisition funnel and direct mutual efforts towards improving the main metrics \u2014 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">revenue<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">8. Join efforts in customer retention<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By aligning sales and marketing, you&#8217;ll get way more leads and customers. But that&#8217;s not the destination point of a strong business player. Companies strive to retain existing customers as it&#8217;s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/re-engagement-email\/\"><b>5<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> times cheaper<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> than attracting new prospects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your sales and marketing teams should be in sync to increase the<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> lifetime value<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of your customers. Ensure a company that has just purchased your solution isn&#8217;t left for granted. Marketers should inform your new customer of any updates, build loyalty programs, and do everything to encourage them to stay. Meanwhile, the sales team should always be ready to join the game.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">9. Facilitate constant communication<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To get connected, sales and marketing should<\/span><b> stay<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> connected. Regular cooperation is a sure way to avoid both teams being siloed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is how you can arrange constant communication between teams:<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hold onboarding Smarketing meetings<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As soon as there&#8217;s a new salesperson in the team, get to know each other, explain how marketers will be supporting the sales team, and share best practices from the very start.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let marketers attend sales meetings<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Presence at sales meetings will allow marketers to know more about sales goals and quotas. Besides, that&#8217;s a wonderful opportunity to discuss content ideas together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Arrange meetings for managers<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Regular monthly meetings for sales and marketing managers are a must to keep both teams aligned. Leaders should meet to analyze metrics, discuss any bottlenecks, and set shared goals for the forthcoming month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An essential part of such meetings is making an SLA (Service Level Agreement) that outlines each team&#8217;s responsibility.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Arrange casual meetings<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whether it&#8217;s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/sales-events-and-training-courses\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a sales or marketing event<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or an occasion your company has organized to celebrate the joint wins, let your sales and marketing teams spend time together outside a traditional work environment to get a bit more sense of connection.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10. Integrate sales and marketing software<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To get a holistic view of your customer, keep track of their every interaction, and measure KPIs, you need to ensure sales and marketing share the tools, i.e., use the same software, making their cooperation transparent and tight.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The most effective technology used by companies that practice Smarketing is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/best-sales-crm-software\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CRM<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Some companies also use email marketing technology, analytic tools, content management systems, and <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">marketing automation<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_13893\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13893\" style=\"width: 850px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13893\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background346.png\" alt=\"The most popular technologies used by companies with sales and marketing alignment\" width=\"850\" height=\"893\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background346.png 1452w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background346-285x300.png 285w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background346-974x1024.png 974w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Background346-768x807.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13893\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Source: SuperOffice<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today you may come across hundreds of platforms that would help you automate your business processes and keep your sales and marketing alignment as strong as never before. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Snov.io<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is just one of them. It offers a free CRM and a handful of tools for lead generation, email address verification, email automation, and email tracking \u2014 all in one set.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>If you want your teams to stay aligned around all your sales communications, Snov.io&#8217;s Unibox feature is available to help you organize all interactions in one place, regardless of the number of email accounts you use.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition, you can integrate Snov.io with such apps as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/knowledgebase\/how-to-set-up-a-calendly-integration\/?utm_source=landing&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=integrations&amp;utm_content=calendly\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Calendly<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to schedule regular meetings between your sales and marketing teams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/app.snov.io\/register?lang=en&amp;signup_source=blog&amp;signup_page=snov.io%2Fblog%2Fsales-and-marketing-alignment-smarketing&amp;cta_type=banner\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-13414\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Background291.png\" alt=\"crm\" width=\"850\" height=\"228\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Background291.png 1532w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Background291-300x80.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Background291-1024x275.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Background291-768x206.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"cases\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sales and marketing alignment: inspiring use cases\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now that you are forearmed with a dozen tips on how to start aligning your sales and marketing teams, get a drop of inspiration from some companies that are already using Smarketing for their revenue growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SuperOffice increased revenue by 10% within the first year of implementing Smarketing<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SuperOffice<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a CRM software producing company, experienced hard times in 2016 when its sales and marketing teams were dissatisfied with each other. S<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ales reps complained about the quality of sales-ready leads coming in, while marketing was unhappy about the sales not following up leads properly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Luckily, SuperOffice took the challenge and developed social selling practices. Since this step concerned both sales and marketing teams, they were both involved in creating a plan on how to be more active on social media.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sales and marketing became more aligned in holding regular meetings, discussing campaigns, content, goals, in short, sharing responsibilities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Result:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Since the adoption of Smarketing, the company has got:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An increase in business leads by <\/span><b>168%<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An increase in social media visits to their websites by <\/span><b>61%<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An increase in social media impressions from 1,000 to <\/span><b>50,000<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (per month!)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And most importantly, SuperOffice has managed to grow its revenue by 10% only within the first year of aligning their sales and marketing processes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-14032\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168848.png\" alt=\"SuperOffice Smarketing\" width=\"850\" height=\"912\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168848.png 850w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168848-280x300.png 280w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168848-768x824.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The story of pride and motivation&#8230;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Zoominfo boosted conversion rates from 4% to 15% with a clever sales and marketing alignment mechanism<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Zoominfo<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a software company providing B2B intelligence to businesses, has long ago arrived at the importance of aligning its sales and marketing processes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The company had been facing difficulties with warm MQLs \u2014 prospects showing implicit interest through their behavior but not requesting more information. It tried to give responsibility for them to the sales dept, then to their special sales SWAT team, but nothing soothed the situation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then Zoominfo established an SLA that aligned sales and marketing, created a special sales role responsible for calling MQLs, and found an optimal number of dials per day (150).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Result:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Conversion rate jumped from 4% to confident <\/span><b>15%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-14033\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168986.png\" alt=\"ZoomInfo Smarketing\" width=\"850\" height=\"410\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168986.png 850w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168986-300x145.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642168986-768x370.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">HLC aligning its sales and marketing through LinkedIn Sales Navigator<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/business.linkedin.com\/content\/dam\/me\/business\/en-us\/sales-solutions\/resources\/pdfs\/linkedin-solving-sales-and-marketing-alignment.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">HCL Technologies<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a global IT services company, had faced a common problem of misalignment between its sales and marketing teams when the question of lead qualification was concerned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What helped the company unify its sales and marketing processes was the need to incorporate marketing automation, which led them to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/snovio-linkedin-sales-navigator-integration\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn Sales Navigator<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the tool that played the key role in HCL Smarketing adoption.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both sales and marketing teams started using LinkedIn&#8217;s Social Selling Index (SSI) as their main KPI. Besides, each month the company began to publish a newsletter focused around Sales Navigator that displayed an internal leaderboard and included success stories. This allowed both teams to inspire each other and learn from their collective experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Result: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The company connected with more than <\/span><b>7K<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> decision-makers and made <\/span><b>$500 million<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> worth of deals in contract value within two quarters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-14034\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642169042.png\" alt=\"HLC Smarketing\" width=\"850\" height=\"611\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642169042.png 850w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642169042-300x216.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642169042-768x552.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wrapping up<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sales and marketing alignment, or Smarketing, is potentially one of the best opportunities for improving your business performance today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Uniting both teams around a single revenue cycle, setting and tracking common goals, facilitating constant cooperation, and integrating software for automation and transparency, you&#8217;ll not only streamline your sales and marketing processes but create a strong body for business optimization and revenue growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Use <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/sales-crm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Snov.io CRM<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as a reliable platform for your sales and marketing alignment, dive deeper in its versatile functionality, and enjoy moving your Smarketing forward.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All you need is love&#8230; and Smarketing. Learn why sales and marketing alignment must become your business reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":14029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[470],"tags":[26,41,55,613],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13885"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34428,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13885\/revisions\/34428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}