To optimize your company's turnover, you can notably align your marketing and sales teams. However, this does not happen with the wave of a magic wand. To achieve this, you must, among other things, define and implement an effective strategy. How ? This is what we will see in this article.
You've probably heard of smarketing, the practice of having your sales and marketing teams work together. This technique is on the rise since it has already enabled several companies to reach a new level. It will offer you harmonization between your sellers and your marketers . This will streamline your customers' purchasing journey, which will obviously boost your turnover. However, to make smarketing profitable, there is no boat plan to follow. You must instead focus on an approach based on your BtoB objectives, but also on your targets. Focus on the points to adopt to define your own strategy.
Steps for an effective marketing strategy
In order to define your own strategy, you need to follow these few steps. They will allow your teams to be more easily aligned and therefore more efficient.
Step 1: Define your buyer persona
What’s the best way to make your next product or service profitable? Among the criteria, your salespeople and your marketers must be on the same wavelength. To do this, these two departments must first agree on the ideal customer: the buyer persona.
Concretely, this is the profile for whom your offer is made, the one who will say that what you are offering is made especially for them. In inbound marketing , you must target a certain category of prospects in particular. It will be up to you to identify it so that the company does not become scattered.
Defining your buyer persona will allow you to orient your entire strategy around it. Indeed, without it, your two departments may have conflicting visions of the ideal buyer, which will distort the information you have in hand. Indeed, if you do not determine this persona, each department will have different criteria to define it. It will be up to you to promote the perfect customer.
For this, the best alternative would be to carry out joint training. The latter will aim to clarify what are the important data to take into account for your two divisions. They will thus have notions and, above all, visions that agree. Once this is understood by both your salespeople and your marketers, you can then move on to the next point.
Step 2: Set Smart Goals
Smarketing is not just the fusion of “sales” and “marketing”. It also refers to another word: Smart. To benefit from the advantages of this strategy, you must then set objectives that respect the SMART method, that is to say:
*Specific: That they do not fall into the trap of generalization. Your goals must be specific.
*Measurable: Quantified data will be necessary to measure the effectiveness of action plans
*Achievable: Goals that are too ambitious will lower the motivation of your employees.
*Realistic: don't ask for the impossible from your services
*Temporary: Determine a deadline for all your objectives in order to have an overview in hindsight.
Once this is done, you can begin to implement your action plans based on these criteria.
The performance indicators that are now almost identical can be used better because there will be better understanding between your two departments.
Step 3: Develop a trust contract
You now have an ideal client as well as goals that you have set for yourself. For its implementation to go smoothly, you will need to ensure communication between your sales teams and your marketing team. The two will have to work hand in hand and must agree on a contract of trust. Also called SLA or Service Level Agreement, this agreement will explain the roles and expectations of each person.
With the SLA, adopting a relevant lead scoring policy will help you define your own smarketing strategy. Concretely, the two departments will set the number of prospects to give to sellers. The latter will also have an obligation to produce results and convert a certain quantity of leads.
Information concerning the responsibilities of each division will then be contained in the trust contract. This way, your teams will no longer blame each other. This, since each of them will be aware of what the other must do to achieve their objectives.
Step 4: Use automated tools
Marketing is not just a story of two complementary departments joining forces. It is also an opportunity to simplify your working methods. For this, you must rely on software. Your CRMs must contain information understood by everyone. You can also use marketing automation tools to program in advance and streamline repetitive tasks.
With these tools, you will be able to make more use of the results you have available. This will save you significant time. Aided by this quantifiable data, your efficiency rate will also increase. Indeed, it is a good thing that the two poles get along and communicate with each other, but it is better to have tools to facilitate decision-making.
By automating your processes, you will even have benefits that go beyond the sales-marketing duo in the sense of lead conversion. Indeed, departments such as after-sales service and the back office could very well benefit from the KPIs that you will manage. Ultimately, this will help the entire company to develop and thus boost its turnover.
Step 5: Overuse Feedback
Finally, an effective strategy is perfected thanks to feedback, so don't deprive yourself of it. On the contrary, it must be abused. This will allow the entire company to come out a winner since communication is essential throughout the purchasing cycle. It helps analyze the results. In this way, KPIs can be managed more easily and more transparently.
You must then set up periodic meetings between your marketing and sales departments. These provide visibility of the objectives that have been achieved, but also of the performance indicators to be improved. The more briefs you carry out, the better you will be able to adapt your strategy according to events.
For example, you can organize interviews at the start of the month to confirm the expectations of each party. 2 weeks later you will already have an idea of the KPIs in the gap and what each department will be able to achieve. Finally, at the end of the month, the two departments will be able to discuss all the data through a monthly report. This is just an example, but it's up to you to understand the pace you need for your own strategy. Weekly meetings of a few minutes or periodic updates, it's up to you. The main thing is the transparency of information which is the guarantee of an effective result.
Mistakes to avoid
Now that the different steps to carry out have been explained, we must also talk about the mistakes not to make. For an effective marketing , pay attention to points that impact the motivation of your employees.
Not taking into account everyone's personalities
Your periodic briefs should be an opportunity to take stock of what is effective, but also of areas for improvement, even on a relational level. However, these meetings must be a means of establishing caring and closed-loop communication. This means that each pole must have the analytical capacity necessary to learn from their mistakes and those of others. Everyone should therefore know how to accept criticism coming from their alter ego.
Avoid any form of one-way communication that could inflame the situation. This since the two services are two sides of the same coin, they have a relatively identical weight. Ego management is required because it is not easy to make two departments work together that have previously been rivals. Remember that a business is several individuals with their own stories and personalities. To thrive, you must take all of these parameters into account.
Pay attention to remuneration
Since smarketing aims to have a transparent strategy, the question of remuneration may arise. Indeed, generally, the sales team is often better off in terms of salary than the marketers. This is also one of the points of friction between the two. This risks reducing motivation, particularly for the marketing team who could feel shortchanged.
You have several solutions such as relatively aligning their salaries or setting more attractive bonuses. The main thing is to make everyone understand that their role is just as important regardless of their services.
Some practical tips to perfect your strategy
Now you know pretty much everything about the right and wrong ways to define your strategy. These few tips will surely help you perfect your smarketing approach.
Promote your offers
To streamline your customers' purchasing journey, learn how to promote your offers. Then take advantage of the information you will obtain throughout the process to identify potential markets. Your CRM and your tools give you clues about the purchasing habits of your leads? You can use it to upsell, upgrade and further improve their experiences.
Do some team building
Focus on harmony between your sales and marketing departments. To do this, dare to think outside the box and have endless meetings. Why not opt for teambuilding sessions based on games, meetings and relaxation? By spending time together away from the work spectrum, your employees will find themselves refreshed and more inspired. Which will be beneficial for both them and the company.
An effective marketing strategy is therefore mainly based on communication. This will formally identify your buyer persona and its expectations in order to optimize your turnover. The SLA contract and constant dialogue will be useful to better understand the obligations and KPIs to be managed. Finally, use and abuse feedback to adapt to the situation. To help you have an optimal strategy that is specific to you, you can use dedicated tools like Magileads.
