The alignment of the sales and marketing teams is called Smarketing . It derives from the union of two English words, Sales and Marketing. Smarketing is an Inbound Marketing strategy that aims to synchronize the sales and marketing teams, thus optimizing the generation of leads and the growth of the company’s sales.
However, the synchronization or alignment of these two teams is a complicated task, since they usually work independently and even competitively between them. Reason why the company must draw up specific strategies to encourage the interdependent work of both departments, directly influencing the increase in sales and customer acquisition.
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Why Marketing and Sales specifically?
It is necessary to define the actions of both work departments and the importance within the organization to understand how it benefits its growth.
On the one hand, the marketing team is in charge of attracting potential customers through advertising campaigns, generating leads and, consequently, giving the brand notoriety. If the strategy is correct, potential customers will turn into actual customers.
On the other, the sales team aims to advise and guide the customer in the purchase process where it tries to influence their consumption decision, that is, to convert a customer into a consumer customer of the product or service. The purpose of the department is focused on increasing the sales of the company.
As explained above, the objectives of both work teams are similar to each other, although they only differ in the responsibilities that each of them has. So, if sales and marketing work in a coordinated and synchronized way, achieving the objectives will be easier and with better results.
Establish the role of each one step by step
To achieve good team interaction, it is important that each one knows what the role they play in each step of the process, be it in customer training, sales and brand promotion.
The definition of associated tasks to be carried out at each stage of the process, allows achieving a good approach to clients, since both departments obtain relevant information that must be integrated to find the conversion points in the sales funnel. This is where an automated CRM represents a fundamental tool, Hubsopt as a leader in terms of Smarketing and Inbound Marketing offers software that will allow you to optimally manage the relationship of your company with your customers.
But what is a CRM?
CRM is the acronym for the English words Customer Relationship Management, which refers to customer relationship management. By means of software, the data obtained from customers is automatically collected, organized and stored. Having all this data centrally makes it much easier to coordinate the actions of the marketing and sales teams .
Sales Hub is Hubspot’s CRM software that collects more relevant data from your prospects, automates tedious tasks, and allows you to close deals faster. While Marketing Hub is a marketing software created with the purpose of increasing traffic, converting more visitors into customers and executing complete Inbound Marketing campaigns.
It should be noted that a CRM encourages the generation of leads in a more efficient way, since it stores the information necessary for this purpose, thus making the marketing team work better.
Balance is essential
In some companies, greater importance is given to the marketing department, since it is in charge of generating quality and attractive content for future clients. However, both teams are important and have the same weight within the company.
The work that both perform is important, it is not only about capturing the client, but also about keeping it with us. At this point the sales team has an important participation because the information they handle about customers contributes to their loyalty, that is, the same customer returns to us.
How does Inbound Marketing help Smarketing?
Inbound Marketing strategies are based on developing non-invasive advertising campaigns, offering quality information to the customer throughout the purchase process.
The purchase process is focused on the user and, more and more users are better informed about the products they are going to consume, thanks to the development of information technologies. Accompanying the client throughout the process is a task that must be carried out in a coordinated manner by the marketing team and the sales team to satisfy their demands.
ANS or SLA agreements
The Service Level Agreements (ANS) or Services Level Agreement (SLA) in English, are agreements between different work teams of the same company to achieve the best results by focusing on the objectives of the same.
An ANS between the marketing team and the sales team is a powerful tool to achieve the desired coordination between these two groups, but for this, the guidelines to follow must be defined:
- Qualified leads : marketing and sales must agree on the definition and content of the leads, to achieve greater effectiveness in brand positioning.
- Establish what is the goal: determine in numbers what is the goal of income to obtain, so that each team works based on this goal.
- Establish the value of the client: refers to determining what is the average amount that a client spends in our company. The sales department is in charge of detecting who are the customers who consume the most quantity so that the marketing department can then follow up on them which will allow them to reach the goal more quickly.
- A CRM facilitates ANS: having a CRM software like the one offered by Hubspot is an ally, since it automatically performs many of these tasks to achieve compliance with an ANS and the alignment between the marketing team and the sales team.
Achieving these agreements is a great step to carry out Smarketing . But, these ANS must be reviewed and monitored regularly, both to update them and to verify their proper functioning.
Now let’s make a summary of what was seen:
- The sales and marketing teams are in charge of the sales and promotion of the company, so it is vitally important that they work in a coordinated way.
- Define the role of each team in the process of customer acquisition, promotion, sales and lead generation.
- Invest in a CRM to automate the collection and management of customer data as well as the generation of leads.
- Striking a balance between sales and marketing work is important.
- Inbound Marketing techniques need the integration of both teams to be effective.
The subscription of ANS by marketing and sales will achieve that they work together towards an integration to reach the goals set by the company.
