It is not a hidden fact that the sales and marketing teams are at cold war all the time. It’s not rocket science to guess the cause of this misalignment.
What is Sales and Marketing Alignment?
First and foremost, alignment is all about communication. As long as both the teams don't work together, speak the same language and share necessary information; no technology is an answer for their misalignment.
If observed clearly, the misalignment between the two teams is not because they cannot have communication but it is because they don’t want to.
Challenges faced by such remote sales and marketing teams.Lack of proper communication
One of the biggest hurdles between remote teams is communication. When teams work under the same roof, it would be easy to communicate with them. We always find them in their seats. There might be sudden meetings to know about the progress of leads or to discuss the sudden downfall or anything, it is easy to gather them and discuss. But this is not the case with the remote teams who tend to work from miles afar. They rarely communicate with each other and have discussions. I admit that there is technology which makes them easy to contact but mobiles and emails are of no use if the people are not ready to talk to each other.
Different Goals
Marketing team holds long-term projects of promoting a brand, giving it a brand identity, bringing in qualified leads. Sales teams who are dependent on the marketing team for information and to process the qualified leads will have a very short span to achieve the goals. Sitting together and discussing it with each other may solve the problem to some extent but when both teams are located at two different faces of earth, it is rather a big challenge to fulfil their organisational goals.
Different Language
Even though their ultimate final goal is to generate new customers and profit maximisation, both the teams tend to speak in two different languages. Marketing often speaks about how to capture leads. Most marketing departments are lead focused because their efforts have been driven by marketing automation. And marketing automation advocates for lead acquisition, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and so on. whereas sales talks about closing the accounts.
Tips for Marketing and Sales AlignmentClear communication
A proper communication can fill in the gaps between the two teams. Both the teams should meet once in a month to discuss the progress. If the teams are remote then, video conferencing once in fortnight or month would be good. Sales teams need to share the feedback and other information of the prospects so that it may help marketing team to take the initiatives.
Align goals and objectives
Teams working independently would be less successful. If the teams are on the opposites faces of earth , then, reporting every single minute detail with each other frequently would help the teams mingle among each other, even with different goals.
Mutual Accountability
Sales teams are given benchmarks to be achieved every month. Likewise, marketing teams are also given metrics of its own where they have a certain standard that is maintained and goals for growth. When the two teams work together, both will be better informed and have an increased chance of success.
Reinforcement
Sometimes you may not have the manpower and expertise to complete sales and marketing alignment. Then, consider taking the help of maybe another company to build you an integral digital marketing strategy to align the business objectives.
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
SLA’s force sales and marketing to agree on key items such as the definition of a lead, and the best point to hand a lead off. Marketing, therefore, knows exactly what sales wants out of a lead, rendering the age old quality.
Tools used for Sales and Marketing AlignmentIntandemly
Intandemly is an alignment tool between Sales and Marketing. Their analytics exactly tell how integrated Sales and Marketing teams are in an organisation. And how many customers are being won/lost because of the alignment/misalignment? The tool is targeted towards Marketers but they would need sales also to use this tool. It integrates with major CRM’s and Marketing automation and it comes with a simple extension which makes it easy to use.
https://www.intandemly.com/HiveDesk
It provides anyone with remote workers a platform that makes it easier manage the outsourcing process. Workers can check-in remotely and HiveDesk will log their work sessions. Never worry about wasted time. HiveDesk offers on-premise, online, and also mobile solutions for small to medium size businesses in a variety of industries.
Timely
It is a simple and beautiful way to keep track of how much time you spend on tasks and projects. You can plan ahead and then log how much you spent working. It's scheduling and time tracking, simultaneously.
Tickspot
This app lets you run timers, submit time entries, and receive instant budget feedback for how much time you have left for your projects. Whether you're responding to emails, in an online meeting, or posting updates through your project management software, your timecard is just a click away with Tick’s time tracking app for Chrome.
Tsheets
It is a cloud-based time tracking and scheduling app that allows your employees to clock in and out from the job site with the devices they've already got in their pockets. Accurate, electronic time data replaces paper timesheets and makes payroll and invoicing faster and less costly.
IdoneThis
iDoneThis is a powerful, but easy to use, web service. It is an email-based productivity log that motivates and tracks productivity with a daily email reminder. The idea is simple: every day at a user-defined time, you’ll receive an email notification asking what you’ve done for the day. You respond in list format and the service tracks it for you.
Basecamp
It is a secure, space online where people working together can organise and discuss everything they need to get a project done. See it, track it, discuss it, act on it. Tasks, discussions, deadlines, and files - everything’s predictably organised in Basecamp.
Teamvisibility
It is a cloud-based service that enables professionals to improve sales performance in their businesses. It captures seller-customer interactions and turns them into “game tape.” TeamVisibility makes it easy for salespeople and their managers to identify the important moments of the day, celebrate what went well, address what didn’t go well, and share their practices with the rest of the team.
Ambition
It is an easy way to get metric visibility from multiple systems, create performance goals and track results from one simple interface. Ambition automatically creates dashboards for every employee, manager, and executive so they can track what’s important day-in and month-out.
With the right technology and integrating it properly, the concept of remote teams can be successful. Many companies these days are going for remote teams seeking for employees and teams comfort.
It is not a hidden fact that the sales and marketing teams are at cold war all the time. It’s not rocket science to guess the cause of this misalignment.
What is Sales and Marketing Alignment?
First and foremost, alignment is all about communication. As long as both the teams don't work together, speak the same language and share necessary information; no technology is an answer for their misalignment.
If observed clearly, the misalignment between the two teams is not because they cannot have communication but it is because they don’t want to.
Challenges faced by such remote sales and marketing teams.
Lack of proper communication
One of the biggest hurdles between remote teams is communication. When teams work under the same roof, it would be easy to communicate with them. We always find them in their seats. There might be sudden meetings to know about the progress of leads or to discuss the sudden downfall or anything, it is easy to gather them and discuss. But this is not the case with the remote teams who tend to work from miles afar. They rarely communicate with each other and have discussions. I admit that there is technology which makes them easy to contact but mobiles and emails are of no use if the people are not ready to talk to each other.
Different Goals
Marketing team holds long-term projects of promoting a brand, giving it a brand identity, bringing in qualified leads. Sales teams who are dependent on the marketing team for information and to process the qualified leads will have a very short span to achieve the goals. Sitting together and discussing it with each other may solve the problem to some extent but when both teams are located at two different faces of earth, it is rather a big challenge to fulfil their organisational goals.
Different Language
Even though their ultimate final goal is to generate new customers and profit maximisation, both the teams tend to speak in two different languages. Marketing often speaks about how to capture leads. Most marketing departments are lead focused because their efforts have been driven by marketing automation. And marketing automation advocates for lead acquisition, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and so on. whereas sales talks about closing the accounts.
Tips for Marketing and Sales Alignment
Clear communication
A proper communication can fill in the gaps between the two teams. Both the teams should meet once in a month to discuss the progress. If the teams are remote then, video conferencing once in fortnight or month would be good. Sales teams need to share the feedback and other information of the prospects so that it may help marketing team to take the initiatives.
Align goals and objectives
Teams working independently would be less successful. If the teams are on the opposites faces of earth , then, reporting every single minute detail with each other frequently would help the teams mingle among each other, even with different goals.
Mutual Accountability
Sales teams are given benchmarks to be achieved every month. Likewise, marketing teams are also given metrics of its own where they have a certain standard that is maintained and goals for growth. When the two teams work together, both will be better informed and have an increased chance of success.
Reinforcement
Sometimes you may not have the manpower and expertise to complete sales and marketing alignment. Then, consider taking the help of maybe another company to build you an integral digital marketing strategy to align the business objectives.
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
SLA’s force sales and marketing to agree on key items such as the definition of a lead, and the best point to hand a lead off. Marketing, therefore, knows exactly what sales wants out of a lead, rendering the age old quality.
Tools used for Sales and Marketing Alignment
Intandemly
Intandemly is an alignment tool between Sales and Marketing. Their analytics exactly tell how integrated Sales and Marketing teams are in an organisation. And how many customers are being won/lost because of the alignment/misalignment? The tool is targeted towards Marketers but they would need sales also to use this tool. It integrates with major CRM’s and Marketing automation and it comes with a simple extension which makes it easy to use.
https://www.intandemly.com/
HiveDesk
It provides anyone with remote workers a platform that makes it easier manage the outsourcing process. Workers can check-in remotely and HiveDesk will log their work sessions. Never worry about wasted time. HiveDesk offers on-premise, online, and also mobile solutions for small to medium size businesses in a variety of industries.
Timely
It is a simple and beautiful way to keep track of how much time you spend on tasks and projects. You can plan ahead and then log how much you spent working. It's scheduling and time tracking, simultaneously.
Tickspot
This app lets you run timers, submit time entries, and receive instant budget feedback for how much time you have left for your projects. Whether you're responding to emails, in an online meeting, or posting updates through your project management software, your timecard is just a click away with Tick’s time tracking app for Chrome.
Tsheets
It is a cloud-based time tracking and scheduling app that allows your employees to clock in and out from the job site with the devices they've already got in their pockets. Accurate, electronic time data replaces paper timesheets and makes payroll and invoicing faster and less costly.
IdoneThis
iDoneThis is a powerful, but easy to use, web service. It is an email-based productivity log that motivates and tracks productivity with a daily email reminder. The idea is simple: every day at a user-defined time, you’ll receive an email notification asking what you’ve done for the day. You respond in list format and the service tracks it for you.
Basecamp
It is a secure, space online where people working together can organise and discuss everything they need to get a project done. See it, track it, discuss it, act on it. Tasks, discussions, deadlines, and files - everything’s predictably organised in Basecamp.
Teamvisibility
It is a cloud-based service that enables professionals to improve sales performance in their businesses. It captures seller-customer interactions and turns them into “game tape.” TeamVisibility makes it easy for salespeople and their managers to identify the important moments of the day, celebrate what went well, address what didn’t go well, and share their practices with the rest of the team.
Ambition
It is an easy way to get metric visibility from multiple systems, create performance goals and track results from one simple interface. Ambition automatically creates dashboards for every employee, manager, and executive so they can track what’s important day-in and month-out.
With the right technology and integrating it properly, the concept of remote teams can be successful. Many companies these days are going for remote teams seeking for employees and teams comfort.