Mindmatrix defines sales and marketing alignment as “the recognition that all relevant big data must be continuously integrated if the business is to respond effectively to its core mission: satisfying customer needs.”
Lately, we see many marketing automation platforms demonstrating how they effectively “align” the sales and marketing teams to give your organization a sales boost.
We don’t dispute that sales-marketing alignment is important; but what we do believe is that you need to go beyond sales alignment to “Sales Enablement” for boosting revenue.
Let’s go back in time a little.
Initially, marketing automation entered the market clearly as marketing support software, with little or no focus on sales. The onus of attracting and engaging prospects was taken care of and the resulting hot leads were transferred to sales.
It was widely understood that while CRM was for sales, marketing automation was for marketers. However, we observed and realized that marketing automation is in fact
much more effective when it is sales friendly. That’s why we believed that sales marketing alignment is the best way to get the most out of your marketing automation software.
As more and more marketing automation companies came to terms with similar observations, they too went the sales marketing alignment way. Though they all talk about sales and marketing alignment, I can’t help but notice how the software still does very little for sales teams and continues to remain a marketer’s domain.
This is an incomplete approach.
Though Mindmatrix has been advocating the sales marketing alignment for several years now, we believe that today the needs have changed slightly.
So what’s changed now?
According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), sales people do not use almost 90% of the collateral created by marketing for selling. Now, that percentage is a clear indication that sales need to be independent of marketing in order to be more effective than what they are.
Sales Enablement software fills the gaps that marketing automation software has failed to close.
Sales Enablement is not only about enhancing the coordination of marketing and sales, it’s the shift of focus from marketing to sales. Let’s consider two situations: one where you have a an amazing marketing strategy in place (which no doubt costs you a small fortune) with a less than able sales team; second, where you’re marketing strategy is average but your sales team is mighty strong. Where do you think you’ll fare better? No points for guessing that one.
It may be a rare scenario where your marketing efforts alone will suffice to push sales, but it is a given that a charged-up and winning sales team can take you places. Sales Enablement Platforms will have all the right tools that you need to make sales teams more effectual and powerful.
An independent sales team will have all relevant big data at its disposal to decide what works and what doesn’t. This big data is not just a plethora of numbers and statistics thrown at you, it is a well-charted, actionable plan, which easily lets the sales team know how and when to execute a certain campaign.
Not just that, it enables content creation by sales that are better equipped with prospect data. Furthermore, stretching the sales funnel is the pulse of the Sales Enablement software. This approach is certain to bring you the best and most leads while being sales focused.
The sales marketing alignment cannot function unless you decide to undertake Sales Enablement first. Companies that have followed the Sales Enablement approach already see a 13-15%
rise in revenue. Now you need to decide, which approach do you want to take?
To learn more about Sales Enablement, visit Mindmatrix.
