It’s not a secret that divides can exist between departments within an organization. Oftentimes, the most common divide exists between the sales and marketing departments. While the two frequently work towards common goals, each tend to operate within their own silo. It’s a gap that must be bridged in order for an organization to move the needle year over year. Whether it be greater conversion rates or boosting revenue, in order for both departments to achieve their goals collaboration and alignment must be fostered. It’s a phenomenon that starts with leadership.

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As a leader within your organization, here are three things you can do to foster collaboration between marketing and sales.

1. Focus on messaging: Communication is everything in the business word, especially when it comes to the terminology you use to connect with your audience. While marketing is usually the department that develops a company’s messaging, it is often up to the sales team to execute on the messaging. This can become a problem if marketing and sales departments have different interpretations of the meaning. Additionally, messaging that works for marketing purposes may not work when it comes to converting sales leads. It’s important for both departments to have a unified message; however, each department should have the freedom to revise the verbiage to increase their chances of success when reaching their audience.
2. Analyze data to create strong leads: When a new lead comes in through a successful marketing campaign, it’s easy for the marketing team to immediately hand over the lead to sales without vetting the opportunity. While it is important to move leads down the sales funnel quickly, thorough research needs to be done to ensure they’re not being over-approached. A solution to this is implementing activity tracking software, which allows the marketing department to note all the touchpoints with a potential lead.
3. Qualify leads early: While overwhelming a lead should be avoided, there are other actions that are even more likely to end in a failed sales attempt. The first being unqualified leads in your sales funnel. It’s important for marketing teams to qualify leads before handing them off to ensure that sales teams don’t waste their time on prospects who won’t convert to sales. In sales, time is money, so if a sales rep is spending time on a prospect who won’t convert, the rep is being taken away from sales that could positively impact your organization’s bottom line. Lead scoring software can be a useful tool to establish transparency between departments and streamline the process of handing off leads. 

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