Any therapist will tell you healthy relationships need communication.
And one conversation isn’t enough.
Communication in a relationship is like watering a plant. It needs to be done consistently, or the relationship will wither and die like a plant without water.
That leaves us with the question: how do we ensure consistent communication between two departments that don’t normally talk to each other: Sales and Marketing?
It starts with my Sales and Marketing Alignment Workshop, but that’s just one day.
For your Sales and Marketing communication strategy to be successful, you need to have something everyone will use on a regular basis for the duration of their career with your company.
Table of Contents
- Why Does Communication Between Sales and Marketing Matter?
- How to Create an Effective Communication Strategy
- Need Help Getting Sales and Marketing Aligned?
Why Does Communication Between Sales and Marketing Matter?
Before we get into the how-to portion of this article, let’s start by making sure we all understand why it’s so important to have an effective communication strategy for your Sales and Marketing teams.
Sales Has Information Marketing Needs
Marketers are all about the data. We love polls, surveys, and analytics telling us what people are doing on our website.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of data myself (I am a marketer, after all,) but all that data can only tell you part of the story.
The Data Gap
It can tell you what people are doing on your website, but it can’t tell you WHY they’re doing it, and the why is crucial. If you don’t understand what’s motivating your prospects, you can’t get them to the next stage of the buyer journey.
The other potential hole that data can leave, especially when it comes from third-party sources, such as keyword research tools, is it can give you a ton of data on the general public, but it’s not always capable of giving you data on your ideal clients.
Most marketers worth their salt will tell you nothing beats actually talking to prospects and clients to get the information you need to create content that resonates with them and leads them through the buyer journey.
Guess who spends all day talking to clients and prospects?
The Sales team can provide invaluable information to your Marketing team when it comes to things like:
- The questions they get asked over and over
- The objections they hear over and over
- The language clients and prospects use
- The language clients and prospects don’t use
- What made them reach out
Feedback on Marketing Efforts
Depending on your buyer journey, your Marketing team might have access to the information telling them which pieces of content are converting leads into customers and which ones are struggling, but they might not have all the information.
Sales does a lot of cold calling, but they also tend to be the ones closing the deal on the leads Marketing spent so much time and effort warming up for them. If your salespeople are good at their jobs, they should be asking the people who actively reach out to them what prompted them to do so. If it was a particular blog post, video, or webinar, Marketing needs to know that so they can make more content like it.
Marketing Has Information Sales Needs
Now that we’ve covered how Sales can help Marketing, let’s dive into what Marketing has to offer Sales.
Data
As important as it is for Marketing to use the data Sales can give them, it’s equally important for Marketing to communicate to Sales when they see data that could make their job easier.
For example, if a particular sales page is getting a lot of traffic, salespeople can make a not of mentioning it during calls or in emails with prospects if it makes sense in the context of the conversation.
Or if people tend to view a particular sales page after viewing another specific sales page, that could indicate potential value in bundling the two services together.
Content
Content can play such an important role in the sales process, but only if the salespeople know it’s there and they know how to use it.
For example, let’s go back to the example of the questions salespeople have to answer over and over in conversations with clients and prospects: what if they could just send a link to an article or a video that answers the question?
The benefits of this are threefold in that a) now the salesperson doesn’t have to waste time going over the same information, b) that gives the prospect an opportunity to take the call to action at the end of the piece of content provided, which could get them closer to buying without the salesperson needing to do anything, and c) it points the prospect, not just to a particular piece of content, but to a whole library of content on your website or YouTube channel. That gives them a chance to explore all that content on their own and find the topics that most interest them and answer the questions that have been buzzing around the back of their minds.
Last, but certainly not least, a library of content positions you as an expert in your field. If your company put all that time and effort into creating all that helpful content, you must really know your stuff.
How to Create an Effective Communication Strategy
Now that we know why communication between Sales and Marketing is so important, let’s talk about how to set up communication channels between the two departments that they’ll actually use.
Decide on a Communication Channel
One of the biggest hurdles in getting Sales and Marketing to communicate is settling on one communication channel they’ll both use.
Too often, Sales is relying on their CRM to identify and follow up with leads, while Marketing talks to each other about campaigns, but don’t make an effort to reach out to people who are not in their department, even if they could contribute helpful information about recent and ongoing campaigns.
Just don’t make the mistake of deciding what the communication channel will be and then telling your teams they have to start using it, especially if they’ve never used it before.
You know the old saying about how the most useful tool is the one you actually use?
That rule applies to communication channels. If you’ve ever tried calling someone who keeps their phone on silent, but always has their email open, you know the importance of reaching people using the communication channel they’re already using.
If you can find a communication channel both teams are already using, find a way for them to use it to communicate with each other on a regular basis.
It could be something as simple as adding a “Marketing and Sales” channel to your Slack or Discord account. That way, no one has to learn a whole new channel, and they don’t have to add another tab that stays open all day. As they go to check a channel they already check daily, they’ll see if a conversation has new messages.
Make It Habitual
If there’s no channel both teams are using, you’ll either have to decide on a new channel everyone can use, or you might have to train one department on a channel the other department is already using.
If that’s the case, be prepared for an adjustment period. It can take anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months for a new habit to develop, and the adjustment period might be longer when taking into account weekends and holidays interrupting the development of the new habit.
Check in with both teams regularly to make sure they’re using the new tool. I know no one likes a micromanager, but this is one scenario in which you might have to embrace certain micromanagerial tendencies, if only for a limited time.
Having everyone set up their account so they automatically get an email when there’s a new message in their new communication channel is also a great way to make sure they actually use the new channel. Email can be clunky for the communication itself, but the alert will prompt them to check the new communication channel until it becomes habit for them to do so.
Need Help Getting Sales and Marketing Aligned?
As I said at the beginning of this article, communication is of the utmost importance, but it’s just the beginning of getting your Sales and Marketing teams aligned.
If you need help getting them on the same page and working to achieve the same goals, consider my Sales and Marketing Alignment Workshop.
If you found this content useful and would like to have more like it sent straight to your inbox, you can sign up for our newsletter in the space below. You can also see what we’re up to by following us on LinkedIn and YouTube.
