HOW TO INTEGRATE BUSINESS AND MARKETING TO INCREASE SALES

Growing a business isn’t easy. I’ve worked with many business owners in every stage of the process from finding a viable idea to rebranding an out-of-date look and feel. Whether you’re peddling products, services, or intellect, getting the word out there is tough.

Our consumers have more choices now than ever before. There’s an oversaturation of businesses that say the same thing, offer the same product, and push sale after sale in order to stand out of the crowd. The monotony turns their consumers into penny-pinching, sale-searching-philiacs that could care less about what brand they are buying, as long as they’re saving 20 cents compared to their other option. 

FYI – Penny pinchers are not ideal clients.

I’ve worked with many companies with this challenge and the problem is usually the same:

Their marketing and new business teams and strategies were completely siloed. 

Their sales team is so focused on getting in the room, earning the commission however possible, even going after targets that weren’t necessarily ideal for the business. At the same time, the marketing team is brainstorming uber-creative ideas to engage the community and boost website traffic but weren’t connecting their marketing ROI with business ROI. Is boosting website traffic to a website that doesn’t convert really helping the business?

Marketing just to market is called overhead. Marketing to increase business is called an investment.

The dynamics in every organization are different so it’s challenging to get a straight answer on how to make your marketing and new business teams work together — especially if you get pushback from veteran employees because “it’s always been this way.” But I’m going to give you some ideas on how you can unsilo your sales and marketing to increase sales.

CREATE A CUSTOMER JOURNEY

A customer journey has ALWAYS been step number one when getting the marketing and sales teams to look at the same map on this road trip called entrepreneurship. It’s an incredible tool that can change the way your company looks at your target audience. A customer journey is a visual representation of the decisions, feelings, and actions the customer has to make to go from not knowing about your brand to being a loyal customer.

This is focused on the customer. Looking at your funnel in this way puts the customer at the center of your decision making, and not the business. The typical sales funnel is very inward thinking — looking at the strategies and tactics of bringing the masses in. A customer journey turns the traditional sales funnel on its head and asks the question, “What is our individual customer feeling, and what are the actions they have to take to make a decision?”

I’ve built customer journeys many times to help my clients get in the head of their target customer. After learning about my client’s product, competitive landscape, and target audience, I develop a comprehensive, visual representation of the stages of the customer journey: discovery, visitor, educate, propose, compare and evaluate, close, and retain and refer. In each phase, we describe the questions the target customer usually asks, their stressors, their thoughts, their actions, the conversations they have with potential other decision-makers, etc. In addition, we develop sales and marketing tactics for each phase. 

Each time I created this customer journey, we printed it out on big poster boards so the client could hang it all over their office so that the sales team and marketing team can have conversations about it and strategize with the customer in mind.

Turn Your Website into a Sales Tool

It’s time to make your website work for you. Every website should tell the audience who you are and what you do. But is it optimized to 1. Show up on Google and 2. Help you convert leads that land on your site? If not, let’s talk.

Your website should be your #1 tool to bring in new leads. By utilizing digital psychology, consumer online behavior, and marketing strategy, you can set your site up for success, usually without doing a full redesign! 

Click below to check out my top seven tips to make your website convert visitors into leads!

INTEGRATE MEETINGS

Instead of having separate sales, marketing, and executive weekly meetings, if you’re trying to align your teams to reach an overarching goal, shouldn’t they be in the same room every week?

Yes, it’s always best to cut down on meetings. So if you can combine a couple in order to align goals, why not integrate them?

ALIGN YOUR CRM

Customer Relationship Manager or CRM is a godsend for many businesses that need to keep track of their sales funnel. There are countless types of software you can use, including Hubspot or Salesforce, to keep your business prospects organized and your touchpoints recorded. I’ve used the free version of Hubspot for years and I love it! One thing I’ve recommended for my clients is to invite your marketing team to see your CRM sales pipeline. 

In your pipeline, you can record any touch points you’ve had with leads to remind yourself if any have gone cold (aka, you haven’t spoken with them in a while). For those chilly leads, your marketing team can step in with a small “surprise and delight” message or gift to give them some love. 

Or maybe it’s understood that your marketing team sends a handwritten thank you note once a new business meeting is held. Having a CRM with this information will cut down on emails because once the sales team adds the meeting to the customer profile, the marketing team will automatically get a notification and know what to do next!

EMAIL MARKETING

Email marketing gives traditional sales teams an alternate funnel to acquire business focused on value, content, and timing instead of outreach and cold calling. The sales and marketing teams can work together by developing an email funnel (maybe starting with a freebie or course signup) to increase loyalty and brand trust as the subscriber goes from newly brand-aware to customer. 

In this funnel, you can send them educational blog posts that directly relate to their pain points, sales promotions, and insiders’ invites to events or webinars!

HIRE A MARKETING CONSULTANT

Maybe your company doesn’t have the resources for a full marketing team quite yet. That’s OK! The first step is to hire someone who can support you in sales while also giving you an outside perspective of your competitive landscape and increasing your brand awareness in ways you never had time for! 

When searching for a marketing consultant, make sure they have your sales goals in mind first! Working with a partner is an investment. So whether your business goals are brand awareness, lead generation, or retention, make sure your marketing consultant has that top of mind when she’s developing your strategy. A marketing consultant can also help you develop business goals and strategies if you don’t have them already. Understand marketing means to understand business. So make sure you utilize your consultant to their fullest potential so you can see ROI quickly.

CONCLUSION

Have your sales team be your ears. When they go into meetings or demo calls, what questions do they answer over and over again? What are the biggest pain points and challenges they hear from potential customers? Use that information to transform your pitch. 

Have your marketing team be your eyes. What are people saying about your industry or brand online? What questions are being asked on Quora? These questions, both in person and online, are gold. They show you the gap your company or services can fill between your ideal customer and their biggest goal.