Three Signs You Have a Sales & Marketing Blind Spot & How to Fix It

Ever wondered if your business has a “blind spot”?

Turns out, an overwhelming number of companies have one right in at the intersection of their Sales and Marketing departments.

Breakthrough trends and ideas are often overlooked because they don’t fit expectations or match the business model… and this is exactly how Sales and Marketing teams end up misaligned creating a major blind spot within the business.

But the thing about blind spots is they’re hard to notice until they become painfully obvious. So read on to find out what signs point to misalignment in your Sales and Marketing departments, and how to fix the problem before it leads your business off track.

Three Signs You’re Experiencing a Sales-Marketing Misalignment Blind Spot

1. Most of your sales content goes unused

In fact, SiriusDecisions found that a staggering  60% to 70% of sales content never gets used.

Quite simply, this translates into a great deal of wasted time for sales and marketing … and wasted time means wasted opportunities!

2. Marketing uses identical messaging when targeting different organizations

Down the line, this means Sales reps move through their pipelines slower.

If Marketing uses the same content to target all prospective clients, then there’s a good chance leads aren’t getting specific information related to their organization early on.

And this can unnecessarily prolong the sales process for your Sales reps by increasing the number of times they will have to reach out before a meeting is scheduled.

3. Sales reps rely too much on the “bells and whistles” to close sales

While this strategy may have worked in the past, times are changing, and so is the B2B buyer landscape.

Here’s how:

As Skaled survey data shows, an overwhelming 96.9% of B2B Decision Makers do a significant amount, or at least some research about a vendor and their solutions prior to the first meeting.

Needless to say, decision makers are paying attention – to your marketing message, the solutions and services your business offers, and most importantly, how they fit their needs.

So if your Sales reps are focusing too much the general features of your solution instead of targeting client specific pain-points, then part of your business isn’t running as smoothly as it could be.

If you can confidently say your business doesn’t face any of these challenges, hats off to you and your team.

If on the other hand you’re a little too familiar with these issues, then chances are there’s a lack of visibility between the Sales and Marketing departments and it’s negatively affecting your bottom line.

How Is Sales and Marketing Misalignment Impacting Your Business?

Here’s what it all comes down to:

When Sales and Marketing teams work together they see  36% higher customer retention rates and 38% higher sales win rates … incredible, right?

But without the right tech-based processes and communication in place, Sales reps are unaware of the metric and data based content Marketing produces, or what topics and themes resonate most with potential clients.

In turn, Marketing doesn’t get useful insights or data from Sales that would help them produce higher value content and generate more qualified leads.

So let’s talk about how you can align your Sales and Marketing departments to save time, boost revenue and create more opportunities for your business.

How To Get Your Sales and Marketing Teams Working Together

By now you’ll be wondering how to correct Sales and Marketing misalignment and avoid the pitfalls discussed earlier.

Here are a few steps you can take right away:

• Make sure Sales and Marketing collaborate to create content across a variety of platforms which speaks to a prospect’s problem, and clearly demonstrates the solutions offered.
• Keep social media and the company website updated with targeted blog posts, industry news, webinars and personalized videos to highlight your business solutions in a way that speak to your clients’ needs.
• Make sure your sales reps demonstrate in-depth industry knowledge, build trust and positive working relationships during every phase of the sales process.

And most importantly…

Integrate your CRM, sales engagement and marketing automation platforms and make sure both Sales and Marketing use them.

To find out more about how you can align your Sales and Marketing teams using tech and process-based solutions to help you avoid disruptive blind spots  download your copy of the ebook Sales and Marketing: Bridging the Gap

To get more insight into key Sales and Marketing trends and how they impact your business take a look at our most recent articles on our blog.