Making Marketing and Sales Collaboration More Effective

Your company’s sales and marketing efforts should not be treated as separate entities. Instead, both departments should be treated as collaborative efforts, each one helping the other succeed for the benefit of the overall goals of the organization. The marketing is the one that generates the sales, while the sales team then takes over to covert those leads to profits. Although each as their own process, they still need to be more of a collaborative effort. But it’s a lot more complex than it sounds, requiring a fine-tuned collaboration strategy to overlap the two so that run seamlessly with one another. Here are some ideas on how to do that:

Assign what each department is accountable for

The first step to creating a successful collaboration is to set define what each department is accountable so that there is no confusion from either side. Having weekly meetings with both teams allows everyone to be on the same page and helps them better understand what is needed from each side. If there is confusion, everything can be sorted out in these meetings so that nothing is left of the process. This helps the entire system become a well-oiled machine for your company.

Always communicate

Communication between the two departments is key. Make sure everyone is letting everyone in on what’s happening from both sides. The best way to do this is to have an internal program that allows people to see what’s happening with all projects so that nothing is lost. This makes communication easier in real-time and everyone can see the progress of a lead all the way down to when it closes.

Share in each other’s successes

Although each department is responsible for their own things, always have both departments share in each other’s successes. The marketing department might have brought in the lead, but nothing would have been done with it if the sales department didn’t close and vise versa. By sharing in each other’s success, it won’t be the sales versus marketing department and just be one team working on different sides for the good of the overall company! 

Have measurable goals for both departments

Collaboration can only happen between sales and marketing when they both have incentives and goals that are tied to the performance of the other department. This will ensure that they both work together.