Sales and marketing typically function as two distinct departments within an organization. However, both teams share the goal of attracting customers, so they often work collaboratively and symbiotically to achieve the best results.
Here’s more on the differences between these departments and how they can work together to succeed.
Sales vs. marketing
In its simplest form, the marketing team creates content about a company’s products and services to generate brand awareness and fill the prospect pipeline. From there, the sales team is responsible for converting customers in the pipeline to generate revenue.
Process
The marketing process is focused on familiarizing your brand and product with new customers or refamiliarizing them with former ones. Organizations that are coming up with new ways to market themselves need to clearly explain what their product or service is, how it solves an issue for the consumer, and their price points. From there, the marketing team needs to determine who is most likely interested in this product or service and where they can find them.
The process for sales includes creating a plan that outlines an organization's actions, tools, resources, and overall sales goals. A sales team is most interested in converting those who have some awareness of the brand into customers to earn a profit. They interact with customers and answer their questions to provide relevant information about the product or service.
[Read more: A Data-Driven Marketing Guide for SMBs]
Goals
A business's marketing goals are to promote its product, company, or brand with clear communication. The primary objective is to examine the big picture and clearly explain how the product or service benefits the widest audience possible, generating potential leads. Common marketing goals include:
- Determining specific performance metrics, such as time spent on site and the levels of organic and paid traffic.
- Calculating average customer acquisition cost (CAC) and return on investment (ROI).
- Analyzing bounce rates to identify areas of improvement on the website and in marketing content.
The overall goal of sales is to ensure the company is consistently generating profits by growing its customer base. Using specific benchmarks set by the company, the sales team marks their goals based on quotas and volume goals. These are shorter-term goals, typically around the financial quarter or month. Goals and targets are determined by how much the business needs to sell to generate enough profit to remain operational. Specific sales metrics include:
- Revenue percentage from new customers versus existing customers.
- Conversion rates and average time to purchase.
- Lead response times and average deal sizes.
Strategies
Marketing strategies are based on gathering information about their targeted audience to see what does and does not work. Once the marketing team knows who they're trying to reach with a certain campaign, they may:
- Deploy specific messaging via digital marketing, print marketing, and content marketing.
- Conduct market research and focus group sessions to determine campaign effectiveness.
Sales strategies are based on connecting with potential customers, talking and listening to them, and converting them into paying customers. To do so, sales associates might:
- Practice cold calling.
- Host/attend a networking event.
- Conduct product demonstrations.
Then, depending on the scope of the product or service, the sales team will attempt to close the sale.
While their primary goals differ, sales and marketing overlap in many ways and should work together.
Prospects
The marketing team aims to generate brand awareness for a target audience. New prospects start at the top of the marketing funnel, moving further down as the marketing team works to keep the audience engaged and primed to purchase. When prospects reach the bottom of the funnel and are ready to convert, the sales department completes the sale.
Team structure and roles
Most companies establish separate sales and marketing teams that collaborate closely, but smaller businesses with a lean workforce might have one person handle the majority of sales and marketing responsibilities.
Typical marketing roles include:
- Marketing managers. They design the strategy and lead the development of campaign content and assets.
- Digital marketers/advertisers. They create content to engage target audiences through paid search, social media, website traffic, and more.
- SEO analysts. They focus on improving a website's search ranking and optimizing its content, copy, and design to align with best practices.
Common sales roles include:
- Account executives. They're responsible for closing the largest sales deals and researching new lines of business.
- Sales managers. They lead sales teams and ensure everyone has the tools, training, and support needed to meet quotas.
- Sales representatives. They're responsible for identifying prospects and closing sales.
How sales and marketing teams can collaborate
While their primary goals differ, sales and marketing overlap in many ways and should work together. Here are a few ways sales and marketing teams can collaborate to drive stronger results.
[Read more: How to Maximize Sales and Marketing Productivity]
Create overlapping goals and metrics
Marketing and sales teams are often scored on different metrics, which can make it difficult to find alignment. However, everyone wins if both teams can combine their expertise to optimize the buyer's journey.
Unite both functions around a common business goal, such as customer retention or new customer acquisition. Track the same key performance metrics, too: Conversion rate and lead value are indicators both teams can measure to create impact.
Common shared KPIs include:
- Web traffic to lead ratio, or how many customers became leads after visiting a website. The sales and marketing teams can collaborate to identify web content gaps to address in order to boost time on site and conversion rate KPIs.
- Sales revenue, or how much profit the company generated and from which products or services. With this information, teams can strategize which products to target and how to best engage with their audiences.
- Customer retention, highlighting how well a company can foster and keep relationships with its target audiences. Sales and marketing teams can capitalize on a business’s positive rapport with long-term customers.
- Cost per lead, or how much the company spends on marketing to acquire new leads. This can help determine which tactics are the most effective for which buyer personas.
Collaborate on audience segmentation
Sales and marketing can benefit from developing two tools: customer personas and the sales funnel (or customer journey, for marketers).
Customer personas, also known as buyer personas, describe in detail who sales is selling to and who marketing is marketing to. The buyer journey or sales funnel outlines the steps someone will go through before they buy from your business. Understanding both of these elements helps marketing and sales collaborate on their next steps and integrate activities for the biggest impact. It can also help share resources as your target customer moves through the purchase process.
Use a CRM tool
Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps marketing and sales employees collaborate to manage leads and the sales funnel. It creates a central record for every interaction a customer has with your brand—whether the interaction is through social media, email, the phone with a sales rep, or an in-person meeting. As long as your team is diligent about keeping records up to date, a CRM tool can add transparency to the buyer journey.
[Read more: 6 Free or Low-Cost CRM Options for Small Business]
Create and share offers
Make sure you’re creating a cohesive brand experience by aligning your sales and marketing offers. With an active marketing promotion, sales can take advantage of the campaign to sign or re-sign clients. Likewise, the marketing team can reward dedicated customers for sales referrals—one of the best ways to source new customers. Coordinating your promotions and loyalty offers keeps everyone on the same page and your customers satisfied.
Establish a service level agreement
A service-level agreement (SLA) is a contract that defines a shared goal, its parameters, and the deliverables each team will provide to the other. By establishing clear expectations, sales and marketing teams understand how to use the areas of overlap to their advantage.
Set up regular check-ins
Schedule ongoing check-ins with both departments to share wins, ensure each has the information they need, identify pain points, and brainstorm solutions. These meetings can also be a safe space to explore new tactics and opportunities throughout the buyer journey.
Dan Casarella and Emily Heaslip contributed to this article.
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