Digest...

Deliver as much data as possible

The first stage in collaborating with Sales: track the heck out of your prospects with marketing and CRM systems.  Data is important, but insights are gold. Enable Sales to perform better by providing context for the data. Include a summary of pain points that prospects have, and provide the best positioning options (qualification questions, supporting content, and other resources).

Score activity and contact

Summarize the information in a way that allows Sales to better see who prospect are, what actions they've taken, and which pain points afflict them that your product or service can resolve.

Have metrics reach all the way to Sales

Show me a marketing department that looks only at cost per lead, and I'll show you a marketing department that is wasting money. Marketing needs to see what works for Sales if it is to invest wisely.

Metrics such as cost per opportunity and cost per win allow the marketing department to get a clearer view of what it should continue doing and what it should ditch.

Don't rely solely on digital

The most important part of sales and marketing alignment is face-to-face communication.

For some groups, quick and casual face-to-face hallway conversations work well. For large businesses, including those with multiple offices, try a focus group.

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Digest...

Given those three reasons and assuming that a buyer has been nurtured and qualified before being handed off to sales (although research shows this doesn't happen for most companies who toss form completions to sales - but ignoring this) then it's up to the salesperson to capitalize on the work that's already been done. Or to screw it up. I'm seeing more and more sales communications that are screwing it up.

If your salespeople can't even be accurate about the type of interaction had with your company, what will your prospects think? And why, after one white paper download, do salespeople pursue leads? And, if they're going to do so, they'd damn well better figure out something more relevant that the email above. Which actually could be from any company, it's so vague.

So I ask you: How much damage are your sales team's practices doing to your marketing performance?

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Excerpted and condensed...

The fact is that there’s always been a hidden sales cycle to some degree. We sought advice from friends and family, we read magazines and reviews (OK, not technically hidden, since there were advertising platforms), and consulted with analysts, colleagues, and committees for large corporate purchases. Social media and search have accelerated, expanded, and democratized its impact however. It’s easier than ever to find multiple sources of information and expertise.

Aberdeen’s 2012 “B2B Social Media Marketing: Are we There Yet?“ report found that buyers communicating on social networks was the number one pressure driving adoption of social media marketing. Companies who thought they could manage the conversation by managing information may now find themselves at a loss.

However, unlike the old hidden sales cycle, the new hidden sales cycle can be discovered, monitored and engaged. This presents unique opportunities for brands to “be the disruption” or at least be part of the information flow.

Service-level agreements (SLAs) between marketing and sales are sometimes perceived by sales as one-sided.

...Marketing should use an SLA to make a commitment to sales, including a timeframe for newly generated leads (e.g. from an event) to be entered into the lead management process. Marketing should also specify the treatment these leads will receive (e.g. placement into a nurturing program). In addition to committing to a timeframe and engagement strategy for new leads, many marketing organizations commit to the cumulative number of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) they will deliver to sales. Note: The definition of an MQL should be agreed upon by marketing and sales and should be automated through a lead-scoring model.

This cumulative-MQL SLA component does not deal with the timeframe for MQL engagement, but with how many MQLs the marketing organization commits to send to sales during a specified time period. It can be made more precise by specifying the number of MQLs that will be delivered for different types of contacts (e.g. from a specific industry or for a particular solution). This can be valuable for organizations with several different product lines or business units.