Blog
content marketing

Sales and marketing in the digital era

The fact that our society is becoming increasingly digitalised has probably not escaped anyone's notice. But what happens when your business rolls along in old ruts instead of keeping up? For businesses, old ways of doing things usually result in reduced efficiency and potential customers falling through the cracks.

So, in order to keep up with the times and attract new customers to your business, it is valuable to keep up with the times and adopt new ways of working as times change.Digitalisation has led to more and more of the buying process being handled digitally today and instead of going through salespeople to conduct business, customers often turn directly to companies. At the same time, many companies still keep their marketing and sales departments separate.

A way of working that often becomes inefficient and where many potential deals can be lost.New times bring new demandsAs we have already noted, the sales and marketing departments traditionally work completely separately from each other. Not only do they work with different methods and in completely different systems, which is both inefficient and can also result in the company selling less than those companies that manage to unite the two departments. In many companies, the departments also fail to see the benefit and value of the work the other does. In order to keep up with the times and drive new business, companies need to make new demands on their respective departments in terms of both cooperation and competence.

For example, sales needs more digital skills, while marketing needs to think more commercially to effectively drive the process forward and, above all, everyone needs to learn to work together across departmental boundaries.When collaboration failsWhen sales and marketing fail to work together for whatever reason, or if they have been kept separate in the past, the respective departments may well continue to do a good job but it can be difficult for the company to see tangible results. For example, if a marketing department does its job well, it may still be unclear whether it actually results in more sales or whether the number of deals would have been the same even without the marketing department's input.

Moreover, the company's work becomes fragmented if each department uses its own tools and methods without aligning and collaborating with other departments.It is also quite common that the sales department does not always see the value of the marketing department. The sales department often has preconceptions about the marketing department and believes that their only purpose and function is to produce roll-ups, measure visits to the website and produce brochures with information material. All of this is certainly important and good but it is difficult for the salesperson to see how this work helps a customer to make a purchase.

say and market together jobassigner1

The benefits of collaborationIf the marketing department focuses instead on developing content and communications that target a specific customer or customer group at a carefully chosen time, they can help the sales department build trust in the company.

This trust can then be used by the sales department to close a deal. To do this, the marketing department may need to develop its skills to include digital marketing and creating digital content that customers can engage with and that makes them want to engage with the company.

In turn, sales people can learn to access and use the same digital content themselves directly with potential customers. In this way, the marketing department's job becomes clearer and more meaningful to the sales department, and the sales department has a better chance of bringing in new business effectively.The sales department often has good insight into the problems customers face and the needs that exist in the market.

If this knowledge is brought to the marketing department instead of staying in the sales department, they can be remedied. The marketing department does a lot of problem solving. They see problems and needs, sometimes before they have arisen, and develop strategies for solving problems and anticipating and meeting needs.

If the sales and marketing departments can sit together and bounce ideas off each other, problems can be solved and needs can be met. Similarly, the sales department can pass on information to the marketing department on where customers are experiencing shortcomings and where information is lacking. The marketing department can then work to improve the information and reach out to new customers and rebuild trust with existing customers.

sales and marketing together jobassigner3

The key to successAs we have already seen, to survive and thrive through digitalisation, it is essential that different departments in a company learn to work together across borders and benefit from each other's knowledge and skills. By merging sales and marketing departments, the company can achieve just that, developing a winning concept that has a greater reach and leads to more closed deals.

As many customers do not seek out salespeople to the same extent as before, there is an increased responsibility on the marketing department to develop strategies to meet these customers' needs and facilitate their buying process and then to communicate this to the sales department.

Those companies that manage to work well with sales and marketing produce more quality leads, their sales people close a higher proportion of these leads and they spend less time per deal. This collaboration and the fact that all parties spend less time per deal also means that both marketing and sales are able to work on more opportunities in parallel. So collaboration is the key to success, but what does successful collaboration look like?

The main success factors for successful cooperation:

  1. Instead of thinking of sales or marketing, think of sales and marketing as two departments within the same unit where the work of each department is in symbiosis with the other.
  2. Share your knowledge. By bouncing ideas off each other and benefiting from each other's knowledge and expertise, sales and marketing can help each other understand their customers and develop the right material for the right customer.
  3. Common objective. If sales and marketing set common goals, you ensure that the company is working together towards the same target group. Marketing can then develop campaigns aimed at this customer and sales can then do business with the same customer group. This will be easier and more efficient than if the two departments work with different customers.

If you want to know more about how we help companies get their sales and marketing department to work as an effective team, please get in touch and we'll tell you more.If you want to learn more about digital marketing and how to get started, please read on by clicking here!Good luck!
Best wishes
Team Contitude

Booka meeting with Contitude

DOWNLOAD MARKETING PLAN TEMPLATE

Want to get started? Send us a message...

Thank you! We'll be in touch as soon as we can!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Book an appointment now.

We'd love to hear about your digital marketing ambitions, goals and challenges - and most importantly, give you tips on marketing activities that work for you!

Book a meeting