Joining together and aligning their workforce for common goals is called smarketing.
In smarketing, marketing and sales teams become a unified force. It allows both teams to unlock their full potential and boost revenue.
In this article, you learn what is smarketing, its benefits and main challenges, as well as 5 crucial steps to implement it. Let’s get to it.
What is smarketing?
Smarketing is the alignment of sales and marketing teams to work together for a smoother customer journey and more sales.
The term “Smarketing” is made from a combination of “sales” and “marketing.” It’s used to refer to a business strategy in which the sales and marketing teams are closely aligned to create an integrated approach.
The goal of smarketing is to build a strong relationship between sales and marketing teams based on shared goals and a unified strategy to reach them.
Is smarketing effective?
Smarketing is a very effective strategy to business and revenue growth.
According to sales and marketing stats, when sales and marketing teams work closely together, businesses see a 27% faster profit growth.
Moreover, 2020 research shows that, according to 22.1% of salespeople, aligning sales and marketing teams to work together helps to close more deals.
Why is smarketing important?
Smarketing is important because it breaks down silos between sales and marketing, leading to a more unified approach that boosts sales, improve customer experience, and help businesses grow.
Imagine sales and marketing as two sides of a coin – they both work afghanistan phone number list towards the same goal (revenue) but from different angles. Smarketing gets them working together seamlessly.
Smarketing allows sales and marketing teams to:
Define measurable goals where everyone is accountable. For example, both teams collaborate on establishing a leads service level agreement (SLA) for marketing. It includes the contingency that sales must follow up with a certain number of the leads they receive. This mutual agreement guide both teams to work as a unified force.
Work in sync to improve customer experience.
Re-evaluate the goals of both teams to identify opportunities and things to improve on both teams.
Shift all focus on every customer.
Communicate goals and challenges openly within both teams.
Streamline sales cycle
A smarketing strategy requires sales and marketing teams to work in sync to tackle various dynamic targets:
Qualifying Leads
Shared Goals and Key Performance Indicators
Target Buyer Personas and Related Messaging
Process for Transferring Leads from Marketing to Sales
Centralization and Visibility of Data
Key benefits of smarketing
When executed well, smarketing brings a bunch of advantages for businesses.
The main smarketing benefits include:
Improved customer experience. With marketing and sales on the same page, customers get a consistent and relevant experience throughout their buying journey. No more mixed messages or confusing handoffs.
Higher sales win rates. Smarketing ensures that marketing generates qualified leads that are a good fit for the product or service. This makes it easier for sales teams to close deals.
Shorter sales cycles. By working together, sales and marketing can identify and address customer needs more quickly, leading to faster conversions.
Increased customer retention. Smarketing fosters a more holistic view of the customer, allowing businesses to develop targeted campaigns that keep customers engaged and coming back for more.
Better resource allocation. When sales and marketing collaborate, they can avoid duplicating efforts and allocate resources more efficiently.
Faster revenue growth. By combining the strengths of both sales and marketing, smarketing can significantly accelerate a company’s revenue growth.
Smarketing: main challenges and how to tackle them
When your marketing and sales teams are misaligned, the sales operations will suffer. The misalignment can cause internal friction and create a bad customer experience.
There are numerous signs of poor or failed smarketing implementation. If your sales and marketing teams are misaligned, you can see bumpy lead handoffs between marketing and sales. Inconsistent or incomplete data that makes it difficult to track ROI on marketing and sales efforts is another warning that both teams are not in sync. The main sign of poor sales and marketing team alignment is low conversion rates and/or poor customer retention rates.
The most common smarketing challenges are:
1. Siloed Teams.
Sales and marketing teams often have different goals, priorities, and even cultures. Breaking down these silos and fostering collaboration can be a hurdle.
Solution:
Set shared goals and vision. Clearly define common goals for both sales and marketing teams, aligning them with the overall business objectives. This creates a sense of shared purpose and motivates collaboration.
Organize joint activities like workshops, brainstorming sessions, and even social events to encourage interaction and understanding between teams.
Establish Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that outline how sales and marketing will collaborate on lead qualification, handoff procedures, and communication protocols.
2. Communication breakdowns.
Without clear and regular communication, smarketing efforts can easily fall apart. Misunderstandings about target audiences, messaging, and lead qualification can lead to wasted resources and frustrated teams.
Solution:
Host regular meetings (weekly or bi-weekly) for sales and marketing to discuss campaigns, customer feedback, and lead qualification criteria.
Share communication channels like project management tools (CRMs) or communication apps (like Slack) to ensure everyone is on the same page and information flows freely.
Encourage to share content between both teams with each other, such as sales insights feeding into marketing content creation.
