Tools to Actualize Your Sales & Marketing Alignment Goals

You’ve heard it before:

The future of Sales and Marketing is all about alignment. Getting these two departments working as a cohesive unit is the key to creating a seamless customer journey and increasing productivity.

Which is why this article walks you through some of the main benefits of alignment along with an overview of the tools you can integrate into your business to start making Sales and Marketing alignment a reality.

How Your Communication Strategy Improves With Marketing & Sales Alignment

Yes, the real magic happens when Sales and Marketing successfully integrate the right technology into their processes, but before we get into what software to use, let’s take a look at how your communication strategy will improve once the departments are fully aligned.

Messaging to stand out from the competition

What makes an email memorable?

To answer this question, let’s turn to Skaled’s survey of 87 B2B executives. It found that nearly 30% of Decision Makers find emails to be most memorable when they include information about a solution – we’re talking about case studies, lead-nurturing emails, and other high-value targeted materials such as e-books and white papers.

Keep in mind, this strategy has the biggest impact when you provide valuable “insider information” about a solution so your lead feels like they’re getting the inside scoop on your product and how it solves a specific problem they face.

Including relevant data and statistics alongside personalized messaging will also give your emails an extra boost.

You’re probably wondering how to get your hands on this high-value information and data. With the right software, you’ll have access to a wealth of insights, but before we get into specific tools let’s dig a little deeper into how else they’ll benefit your Sales and Marketing teams.

Your Marketing Content Speaks To Multiple Influencers and Decision Makers

Here’s why this matters:

In the Skaled survey, 70% of Decision Makers said that at least one other team member influenced their decision to accept an initial meeting with a provider.

Which is why top-tier communication strategies need to target multiple influencers throughout an organization. This will ensure the content you produce reaches the right people who have the time to engage with it.

Think about it this way –  a marketing manager is more likely to sit through a video, while a VP will respond better to “snackable” content.

With this in place, your content will speak to Decision Makers and Influencers at all stages of the pipeline. Which brings us to the next step…

“Value-add” Drip Emails Are Built Into Your Sales & Marketing Strategy

In addition to high-value content, segmented drip emails are a must-have for modern Sales and Marketing teams.

Why?

Quite simply, instead of sending the same content all at once, drip emails allow you to segment communication using a more personalized and targeted approach so that Decision Makers and Influencers within the same organization receive campaigns tailored to their position.

Let’s take an example: Using drip emails, it’s easy to send a customer case study to a Key Influencer, while a Marketing Professional gets a data-backed article highlighting the value of your product or service, and an IT Professional receives a case study explaining how your solution impacts security.

Sounds impressive, right?

In this way, you speak to each influencer’s specific needs and address role-specific concerns…which means you preemptively avoid challenges and roadblocks down the line.

 To get you started, here are some sample drips Skaled uses:

Clearly, this requires a modern sales platform that allows reps and marketers to manage multiple buying personas and develop a framework of communication that makes it easy to build, personalize and track customer interactions.

So now that you’ve seen how alignment can revolutionize your email marketing, let’s look at the technology that will make it a reality for your business.

For more information on Sales & Marketing alignment, check out our blog.

What Technology Should You Use To Align Your Sales and Marketing Teams?

Software is at the very core of how modern companies bridge the gap between Marketing and Sales to achieve full alignment… so let’s talk about the software that will allow you to achieve everything we discussed so far, plus:

• Integrate multiple stakeholders into the pipeline
• Create personalized processes linked to analytics
• Keep your Sales team in the know about what type of content buyers care about (and use this information to adapt existing strategies for higher success rates)
• Influence key Decision Makers and stakeholders with personalized content at the top, middle and bottom of your sales pipelines
• Allow Sales and Marketing to adjust strategies on an ongoing basis thanks to constant feedback

4 Powerful Tools For Sales & Marketing Alignment

SalesLoft: A pioneer of sales engagement technology, SalesLoft streamlines processes for Marketing and Sales teams by automating social media posts, creating direct mail campaigns and integrating personalized videos into emails for higher engagement.

Showpad: Showpad delivers powerful sales software using clear analytics and revenue representation to make sales content easy to find, share and track from the first interaction through the end of the transaction cycle.

Seismic: Seismic enhances Sales and Marketing by offering content creation capabilities with statistics and data to track how content resonates with different buyer types, increasing ROI across both departments.

ClearSlide: Clearslide delivers content recommendations, suggests action routes and next steps to take with leads, prioritizing leads that are most likely to close.

Using the right software provides you with valuable data on your target audience you can use to customize your Sales approach for each audience and industry. Beyond that, you’ll have a well-documented strategy both Sales and Marketing teams can access to work as a cohesive unit.

Now let’s take it one step further and look at the next generation of Sales and Marketing alignment… read on to find out what the future of Sales and Marketing has in store.

Next-Generation Sales and Marketing Alignment

Great, you’ve got your Sales and Marketing teams aligned, but why stop there?

Forward-thinking organizations are going beyond email by focusing on media buys and direct email campaigns that “warm up” the prospect before Sales reps first reach out.

Here’s a few technologies they’re using to take Sales and Marketing to the next level:

Predictive modeling software such as EverString or DataFox find similar companies to target based on your current customers.

Once Marketing has a well-developed understanding of prospects’ behaviors, software such as Terminus targets prospective companies with online advertising. This will generate awareness and potential engagement before the leads are worked by Sales teams.

Another ground-breaking tool is Bombora. It allows you to input keywords, then tells you what companies are searching for them – a great way to find new leads.

This type of setup is only used on the fringes for now, but will become the norm within the next few years. Even so, competitive and modern organizations should begin implementing these new technologies and processes to guarantee that the Sales team is spending their time as efficiently and effectively as possible.

To sum up:

Sales & Marketing alignment will increase revenue and modernize your business thanks to a seamless exchange between Sales and Marketing. With a unified platform and state of the art predictive software, Marketing will be able to identify, create and prepare leads for Sales to then monitor, forecast and move down the pipeline.

Choosing a platform can be intimidating, so download your copy of the E-book Sales and Marketing: Bridging the Gap for in-depth information on Marketing and Sales alignment and what technology is right for your business.