Establishing Effective Communication Between Sales and Marketing

Do your marketing and sales departments speak the same language? Do they communicate and work in tandem to identify and nurture leads and convert them into paying customers?

If not, it could negatively impact your company’s success. Consider this startling statistic: In the U.S., marketing and sales teams waste approximately $1 trillion every year due to poor coordination. It has been found that when marketing and sales work together, the business is 67% more effective at closing deals. 

Keep reading to learn why communication between marketing and sales is vital, what happens when there’s a disconnect, and what you can do to improve the synergy between these two teams.

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What are the Roles of Sales and Marketing?

It’s the marketing department’s job to raise public awareness of the organization to generate leads for the sales department. Successful marketing campaigns encourage potential customers to connect with the company through various channels—website, email marketing, mobile devices, and social media. Sales professionals then convert prospects into customers. 

In a best-case scenario, the sales department works with marketing to determine the ideal target audience for the company’s products and services for more effective campaigns and greater profits. 

Although the two departments have the same goal of attracting new customers and generating sales, there is often friction. This is most often caused by a lack of communication.

 

Why Internal Communication Between Marketing and Sales is So Important

Should marketing and sales be siloed away from each other? Absolutely not! A lot can go wrong when marketing and sales don’t talk to each other. In the absence of shared information, the two departments work independently without any knowledge of what the other team is doing. 

Here are three examples:

• The marketing department of an energy drink manufacturer has discovered that competitors sell beverages at rock concerts and sporting events. They don’t share this information with the sales team, who continue to sell to traditional supermarket buyers, although sales are waning.

• Through interactions with existing customers, sales reps for a productivity software firm learn that users are sharing success stories on TikTok. That would be a great place to advertise—only the company doesn’t have a TikTok account. Marketing knows nothing about this because the two teams don’t meet regularly. 

• When asked why sales have declined, the sales department for a sneaker company tells company executives that marketing doesn’t send them good prospects. Marketing says that the sales team is ‘out of touch’ with what consumers want, as research shows that tastes are changing. The two teams talk to upper management, but not to each other.

Poor communication can cause a mismatch in strategies, goals, and focus. This often leads to frustration, a stagnant sales funnel, the inability to close deals, and missed opportunities.

Marketing can provide insights into consumer behavior and preferences, while the sales team can give marketing real-time feedback from its interactions with customers. This collaborative data sharing provides a holistic view of the company’s customer base.

When marketing and sales communicate, they can:

• Increase revenue
• Improve the customer experience
• Optimize lead quality
• Close more deals
• Better understand their customers
• More successfully execute on a common strategy

With effective communication and by sharing data, a company can get accurate forecasts, shorten sales cycles, and more effectively address its CRO (conversion rate optimization). But how can you reconnect a communication breakdown?

How To Establish Communication

Effective communication between sales and marketing is essential to keep everyone updated, enable joint planning, and facilitate idea sharing. 

How do you improve communication between marketing and sales? You can get your teams on the same page by having frequent meetings, understanding each team’s responsibilities (and where they should collaborate), learning what each team needs for success, and using a cloud-based CRM platform.

Schedule Frequent Meetings Between Teams

How often should the two teams meet? There should be weekly meetings to discuss ongoing marketing and sales campaigns, customer pain points and requests, and potential new business opportunities. This is especially critical following a new product launch or major initiative.

It is good practice to “shadow” each other during meetings to understand better what the other team is doing. 

Determine Spheres of Responsibility

Marketing is focused on top-of-funnel (TOFU) activities to understand the market and increase public awareness, while sales is concerned with bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) tasks like closing sales and keeping customers happy. 

How do marketing and sales synergize? They should collaborate on creating buyer personas and establishing the sales journey. They should also work together on marketing content and messaging. By doing this, they can integrate their activities for maximum impact. 

Discuss What Each Team Needs from the Other to Be Successful

Both teams should appreciate the connection between brand awareness, generating quality leads, and closing business deals. During meetings, ask the other team what they need. Is it more information about current promotions? Does the sales team need to share feedback from customers so that marketing can address concerns?

If frequent in-person meetings aren’t practical, consider having an online system that both groups can access for real-time data. 

Use a Shared CRM Platform

A customer relationship management (CRM) platform allows both marketing and sales to track their activities and progress. Since the information is always accessible, you can easily avoid miscommunication. 

The teams can communicate from wherever they are and share important data. This tool provides transparency into internal processes and can improve both internal and external communications.

Find Top Marketing and Sales Talent with CulverCareers

If you need to expand your marketing team to generate better leads for your sales department, CulverCareers provides expert Marketing Recruiting services. As a premier recruitment agency, we have a highly skilled and pre-vetted network of professionals who have deep experience in promoting organizations in your specific industry. We’re also one of the top Sales Recruiting firms in this competitive field. With 40+ years of expertise and a strong track record of stellar placements, we can help your company quickly hire the perfect sales professional for your business.

Get marketers and salespeople on your team who know effective communication is the key to success when you use CulverCareers to find top talent.