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    Connecting the Marketing Message with the Sales Conversation

    Bob Apollo
    Post by Bob Apollo
    May 13, 2013
    Connecting the Marketing Message with the Sales Conversation

    I recently recorded an on-demand webinar with BrightTALK on the increasingly important need to connect your marketing messages with the conversations your sales people are having with prospects and customers in the field.

    BrightTALK logoYou can watch the webinar here, but I thought you might find it interesting if I shared a few of the points made in the webinar in this article - and offered some recommendations. Here goes:

    Why is sales and marketing alignment so important anyway? Here are a couple of compelling reasons:

    • Highly aligned organisations grow over 30% faster than companies with disconnected sales and marketing teams
    • In highly aligned organisations, marketing generates more than three times the pipeline value than in laggards

    What are the key foundations of alignment? Here are my 4 recommendations, plus a bonus suggestion:

    1. Agree on what an ideal customer looks like
    2. Identify with your key stakeholders
    3. Target your prospect's actionable issues
    4. Articulate a clear, consistent value proposition

    And my bonus suggestion? Cut out all the self-serving gobbledygook, techno-babble and buzzword b******t. It does nothing to set you apart, and your prospects can smell it from a mile away.

    Armed with that foundation, how can you better align the marketing message with the sales conversation in practice? I guess you'll have to watch the webinar to find out ;-)

     

    Bob Apollo
    Post by Bob Apollo
    May 13, 2013
    Bob Apollo is a Fellow of the Institute of Sales Professionals, a regular contributor to the International Journal of Sales Transformation and Top Sales World Magazine, and the driving force behind Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners, the leading proponents of outcome-centric selling. Following a successful corporate career spanning start-ups, scale-ups and market leaders, Bob now works as a strategic advisor, mentor, trainer and coach to ambitious B2B sales organisations - teaching them how to differentiate themselves through their provably superior approach to achieving their customer's desired outcomes.

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