Smarketing is basically the union of the sales team with the marketing team; working in an aligned manner they can achieve the company's sales objectives. Although it should be implicit in every organizational culture, the reality is that both teams have not worked collaboratively for years.
According to data provided by Hubspot, 87% of the terms used to describe each other are negative .
So how do you get both teams to work together? The most important turn leads into sales with overseas chinese in worldwide data thing is to set common revenue-focused goals , and then get to work!
Let's consider these 5 points when applying a Smarketing strategy:
1. Speak the same language
In order to understand each other, it is essential. When developing a work plan, we must define the following:
Our numbers: How many leads do we need? How many sales do we need to close? How much have we invested? In how much time? Ultimately, what drives companies is revenue generation. Both teams must be aware of what those numbers are.
Buyer persona : is the representation of our potential client obtained through their demographic information, motivations, tastes and interests, which allows us to understand exactly who we are addressing and therefore how we can approach them. Both teams must have in-depth knowledge of this prospect model.
Sales process: at what point does marketing transfer the potential client to sales? When is the potential client ready to be approached? For marketing executives, the SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) is a prospect that meets the characteristics and has a considerable level of interest in the product or service that we are offering. That is when the salesperson must approach him to transform him into a client.
An example is contacting by phone a communications manager who works in a company with more than 100 people and has downloaded an eBook on organizational communication tools.
Both teams need to understand the customer lifecycle to reach out to them at the right time.
2.- Develop a Closed Loop Reporting
This report provides us with detailed information about the interactions obtained with potential clients through a platform. When applying Smarketing, it is important that the sales and marketing teams share feedback in order to make improvements.Thanks to this report, we can do the following:
Measure each marketing action and know how they achieve the desired conversion (visits, leads, interactions, etc.)
Sort out what content is actually relevant to your prospects.
Track interactions with specific customers, see what they've downloaded, where they click, and other important data.
Clearly analyze and share customer information with the sales team so they can address them appropriately.
Creating alerts for sales executives: the example of the eBook mentioned above can be addressed thanks to this tool.
3. Implement a Service Level Agreement (SLA)
The SLA consists of defining what each team is committed to fulfilling in order to support the other; this is how we achieve alignment around the objectives. A graphic example could be the following:
Marketing is committed to delivering the lead data necessary for the company to achieve its objectives.
On the other hand, sales is committed to quickly and thoroughly following up with these prospects in order to close sales.
Considering that these agreements must be measurable (in order to be able to improve them) the commitments would be as follows:
Marketing is committed to delivering 100 leads per month.
Sales will contact each new SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) within 1 hour.
4. Maintain open communication
Once we have a common language, it is time to use it and generate instances of review and discussion. Weekly follow-ups to review SLA compliance, product information, lead development, among others, should be accompanied by monthly meetings with more strategic purposes, seeking to improve errors.
Remember that everything communicates, so when making contact with the sales team, it is good to consider:
Selling your marketing campaign to your sales team: Give them all the information they need to be successful.
Communicate about the product: Share all available updates and inform the sales team with important tips for customers.
5. Check the numbers
To measure and improve, you need to track and analyze information.
Graphically representing data on a dashboard is one of the simplest ways to quantify goal achievement.
Review the results of each campaign to understand which actions drive the most traffic, measure MQLs, and report daily and monthly sales.
With all this information, you will be able to see what is working well and how you can improve.