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How Manufacturers Can Align Sales & Marketing Teams

This article appeared in the June 2020 issue of MiMfg Magazine. Read the full issue and find past issues online.

The economic crisis brought about by COVID-19 has had a staggering impact on manufacturing with unavoidable layoffs and entire 2020 budgets and growth goals thrown out the window. Now, employers must locate every viable option for cost savings. Aligning two teams — sales and marketing — can generate better results while eating up less time and resources. Here are a few steps to help you align your sales and marketing teams for increased revenue in a time where it is most needed:

Set Goals

To get your teams working together, they need a common goal. Not sure where to start? In general, it’s good to convert about 2-3 percent of your website traffic into leads. Around 10-15 percent of those leads should then convert to sales. To figure out your growth goals, use those percentages as a benchmark. How many leads do your teams need to pull in and close to meet your new revenue and growth goals? Make sure both your sales and marketing teams are in on this goal-setting conversation. Aligned efforts from both teams are key to ensuring you’re able to put strategies in place that will help you meet those growth goals.

Establish Common Terms

With common goals set, you can get to work aligning your teams. Sales and marketing alignment starts with a clear definition of leads that both teams can agree on. Figure out:

  • What a lead is
  • What your teams consider to be a “qualified” lead
  • What makes a lead an “MQL” or marketing qualified lead
  • And what makes a lead an “SQL” or sales qualified lead

When both teams are working with the same definitions, you eliminate any confusion about what leads marketing should be passing along to sales, and which leads sales should follow up on.

Track Leads and Deals with a CRM

As soon as your teams establish common definitions for each type of lead, put them into your customer relationship management (CRM) technology — think systems like Salesforce or HubSpot. When both teams can see every lead and deal in your sales pipeline, alignment is simple. In this difficult time, technology is key to effective sales and marketing alignment. A CRM helps log all communications, keeping both sales and marketing on the same page. Solutions like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams can help you maintain productive, face-to-face communications, even while employees are working from a distance. Many of these services are currently available at a steep discount, so it’s worth trying out one or two to see what works best for your team.

Establish Closed-Loop Reporting

Every month, sit down with both teams to track your metrics for the month. Are you hitting those traffic, lead, and sales closed goals? If not, why? Getting both teams in these reporting meetings will help you get to the bottom of any roadblocks in your process. Take that information and implement new strategies to respond to what you’ve discovered in your reporting meeting. It’s understandable that marketing and sales plans may get placed on the back burner when your top goal is just staying in business. But remember, these will be crucial parts to your restart efforts so make the necessary adjustments now to ensure more efficiency — and revenue — later.


About the Author

Mackenzie DeaterMackenzie Deater is the content strategist for Evenbound. She may be reached at 616-215-0626 or mackenzie@evenbound.com.