To create the optimal customer experience, it's undeniably critical that yoursales and marketing teams are well-aligned.

If you don't, your prospects will suffer.

For instance, imagine this: your prospect has been researching a new video conferencing tool for weeks. She'sfinallyfound one company she's extremely interested in — yours.

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Before calling a sales rep, your prospect decides to read numerous blog posts on your website. She also downloads an ebook, watches your company's YouTube videos, and even chats in a few of your community forums.

Once your marketing materials have convinced her your product could be a good fit, she decides to call one of your company's sales rep.

Unfortunately, the sales rep has no background knowledge on the content with which the prospect has already interacted. The sales rep begins a generic introductory sales pitch, not realizing your prospect isalmostready to buy — she just has a few final questions.

This results in a less-than-ideal user experience for your prospect, who won't feel valued as someone who's been interacting with your brand's content for weeks already.

This isn't an ideal experience for your company's sales or marketing teams, either. If the sales rep was aware of the content with which the prospect has interacted, they'd have an easier time connecting with the prospect and understanding her needs upfront.

Ultimately,well-aligned sales and marketing teamshave amajorimpact on your business' bottom line. In fact, companies with well-aligned sales and marketing teams generate208% more revenue从营销工作。

However, if your marketing and sales teams are primarily remote or operate out of different locations, it can be even more challenging to align the teams than it would be in-person. That's where良好的远程领导comes into play.

For this article, I've spoken with Debbie Farese, HubSpot's former Director of Sales Enablement and current Director of Global Web Strategy, and Matt Hambor, HubSpot's Corporate Sales Manager, to gather insights into how you might align your own distributed marketing and sales teams.

3 Tips for Aligning Distributed Marketing and Sales Teams

1.确保您的目标在分布式营销和销售团队中保持一致。

最终,为了使分布式营销和销售团队保持一致,至关重要的是,您至关重要的是,确保两个团队都清楚地确定了互惠目标。

Debbie Farese told me: "Goal alignment is the best way to ensure sales and marketing teams are aligned, no matter where they sit. For marketing, this means looking at metrics that factor in the quality of leads generated, not just the quantity. Examples are lead-to-qualified-lead rates, close rates, revenue per lead, and more."

Farese added, "For sales, this means committing to working the leads that marketing generates and tracking this along with success in closing deals. Examples are work rates, productivity per rep, and more."

最终,这还不够you've aligned goals across teams. Instead, you need to prove it, with some of the metrics Farese mentions above. And, whether your team is remote or in-office, you'll want to continue to foster meetings that allow both teams to pivot if your current strategy isn't enabling the teams to work hand-in-hand effectively.

例如,假设您的销售团队已将“向客户告知新产品功能”是当年的主要目标。但是,这个目标尚未与营销团队正确沟通。

毫无疑问,这导致了前景的摩擦。在与销售代表交谈之前,潜在客户可能会收到大量的高质量营销材料 - 包括电子书,博客文章,网络研讨会,新闻通讯和YouTube视频 - 但是,如果大多数营销材料不提及该材料bob官网官方网站产品的新功能。

It makes it easier for both your sales and marketing teams to effectively perform their roles if both teams are well-aligned in a few critical goals.

And, most importantly, it makes it easier on your prospects and customers if your teams are aligned. You don't want your prospects to feel like your company is disorganized, or that they're receiving disparate information from different teams within your larger organization.

2. Have your marketing team listen to sales calls or join Slack conversations.

If your sales team is largely remote,这可能意味着你的销售代表函数的rily via video or conference calls to close deals, rather than in-person customer meetings. This could make it easier to integrate marketing into the sales process, or enable marketing leaders to listen, on occasion, to prospect conversations to ensure the marketing team is delivering relevant content.

For instance, Farese told me, "Through remote work, it's easier than ever for marketing to listen in on customer and prospect calls to understand their persona even better, develop empathy for sales reps, and get an understanding for what content and messaging really resonates."

Additionally, Matt Hambor mentioned as a leader of a remote team, it's critical you "encourage everyone to contribute to communication via Slack, email, or text. If you hear a good idea or success story from a member of your team, encourage them to share it with the larger group."

这个概念还可以帮助您调整营销和销售团队 - 例如,您可以邀请营销团队的成员进入销售团队的Slack渠道,因此他们可以注意客户的关注和成功,并考虑将这些故事作为案例研究或通过在公司新闻通讯中强调客户。bob全站appbob官网官方网站

3. Create both formal and informal opportunities for sales and marketing to collaborate.

马特·汉伯(Matt Hambor)一直在管理多数远程销售团队已有两年多年的时间,他告诉我一些策略,他用来促进团队合作和交叉协作。哈姆博尔说:“在交易交易时设定明确的期望和透明,对任何类型的协作至关重要,但在遥远时更为重要。”

You might try implementing a few cross-department virtual meetings once a month, or once a quarter. Hambor's team, for instance, meets with a HubSpot Marketing Manager once a month for a standup meeting in which both teams are able to ask questions and ensure their priorities are well-aligned.

By ensuring your sales team is able to glean insight into marketing strategies and priorities, you're ensuring your sales reps have a firm understanding of your prospects' entire start-to-finish buyer's journey, so they can better meet prospects wherever, and whenever, they'd like to be met.

此外,Hambor我ntions he often hosts weekly happy hours, contests within the team, and other more casual events to facilitate team bonding. To align your sales and marketing teams, then, you might try creating a quarterly remote happy hour, trivia game, or cross-department bonding activity.

最终,无论您的团队是遥远的,面对面的还是两者的混合在一起,Hambor表示,作为经理,您向您展示您的员工幸福感至关重要。哈姆博尔说:“重要的是,您要问您的员工的情况……actuallycare. They could be going through things you don't have exposure to. It's important you have a genuine interest in their well-being and success. The last thing you want is your remote teammates feeling isolated and insecure reaching out and asking for help."

Once you've implemented some strategies mentioned above, consider sending a survey to your sales and marketing teams to gather insights into other potential opportunities for cross-department collaboration and partnership. Your marketing and sales teams will thank you — and so will your prospects and customers.

Editor's note: The post was originally written in March 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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最初出版于7月22日,2020年7:00 am,更新于2020年7月22日

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