In ToB marketing in the digital age, how can the marketing and sales departments collaborate efficiently?

This article details the common goals and basic strategies of the marketing and sales departments in ToB marketing in the digital age. Let’s take a look.

With the development of digital technology and data analysis tools, the role and value of the marketing department of ToB companies have changed significantly in recent years. In the past, the marketing department was often seen as a department that assists and supports the sales team, and its work results were difficult to quantify, such as brand awareness, market education, customer relationship building, etc., which were difficult to directly link to sales revenue.

However, in the current ToB marketing environment, the marketing department has transformed into a more proactive and strategic core department. By using advanced marketing automation platforms, CRM systems, and various tracking and analysis tools, the marketing department can accurately track the entire journey of potential customers, from initial brand contact, interest generation, interactive participation, to conversion into sales opportunities. This transformation is reflected in the following aspects:

• Marketing funnel visualization: Marketing departments can use marketing automation tools to monitor the number of potential customers generated by marketing activities (such as MQLs, Marketing Qualified Leads), as well as the proportion of these potential customers that are ultimately converted into sales qualified leads (SQLs, Sales Qualified Leads).
• Measurable ROI: The marketing return on investment (ROI) becomes more transparent, and the marketing department can use data analysis to prove the return on investment of each marketing activity, thereby optimizing budget allocation and strategy execution.
• Content Marketing and Sales Support: The Marketing Department not only focuses on brand building, but also strives to create high-quality content marketing strategies to attract, cultivate and guide potential customers into the sales process, while providing strong support materials and services to the sales team.
• Data-driven decision making: The marketing department makes decisions based on a large amount of data, including market trend analysis, customer behavior research, competitor intelligence, etc., to ensure that the marketing strategy is both consistent with the brand image and can directly promote sales growth.
• Integrated Marketing: The Marketing Department promotes integrated online and offline marketing, whether it is offline activities such as industry conferences and seminars, or online channels such as social media, search engine optimization, and paid advertising, striving to achieve the dual goals of brand exposure and sales lead generation.

The role and contribution of the ToB marketing department have undergone a profound change. The effectiveness of marketing activities that were previously difficult to quantify and evaluate can now be clearly presented with the help of advanced marketing technology and data analysis methods. This change has made companies realize the important role of the marketing department in influencing total sales and order volume. In fact, the energy contained in the marketing department in promoting sales growth is far greater than previously recognized.

Nowadays, the marketing department of the ToB market pays more and more attention to performance output and actively advocates the concept of "integration of brand and effect", aiming to actively promote sales conversion while strengthening the brand image. They are no longer satisfied with simple publicity and promotion, but pursue that every market initiative can show substantial improvement in the actual sales effect at the data level. This means that the marketing department not only has to shoulder the responsibility of shaping and disseminating brand value, but also has to deeply intervene in the sales conversion link, and effectively improve the conversion efficiency from brand contact points to final transactions through refined operations and precision marketing.

However, even if the marketing department is more deeply involved in the sales conversion link, most companies still leave the customer communication after MQL to the sales department, and the rights and responsibilities of sales conversion also belong to the sales department. In this way, from the perspective of the overall business development of the enterprise, how to promote efficient collaboration between the marketing department and the sales department has become an issue that must be solved and an important task.

1. Common goals and conflicts between the marketing department and the sales department

Although the work contents of the marketing department and the sales department are different, they have some common goals. In actual operation, they must work together to achieve the best performance of both parties and maximize the overall interests of the enterprise. In short, the common goal of both is to promote the commercial success and sustainable growth of the enterprise.

The Marketing Department is committed to shaping the brand image, expanding market coverage, stimulating consumer demand and increasing brand awareness, creating a favorable market environment and ample sales opportunities for the Sales Department; at the same time, the Sales Department, based on the strategic guidance and market demand insights provided by the Marketing Department, converts marketing activities into actual sales, effectively delivers products to consumers, completes transactions and recovers funds, thereby jointly improving the company's market share, sales and customer satisfaction, thereby achieving or even exceeding the company's overall sales goals and profitability indicators.

The two departments work together efficiently through different but interrelated work links such as market promotion, brand building, sales channel development and maintenance, and customer communication to create a smooth chain from market promotion to sales conversion, ensuring the effectiveness of marketing activities and maximizing economic benefits.

However, in actual work, there may be some inherent contradictions and coordination problems between the two departments, mainly including the following:

1. Inconsistent specific work goals

The marketing department tends to take a long-term perspective and pursues the sustainable and healthy development of the brand, such as increasing market awareness, shaping a good brand image, and increasing market share through a series of brand building activities. These efforts are often difficult to directly convert into sales in the short term, but they lay the foundation for the company's long-term competitiveness and profitability.

For example, the marketing department may plan a one-year brand remodeling project to improve consumer recognition and loyalty to the product, which may not immediately bring about significant sales growth. On the contrary, the sales department focuses on sales performance every quarter or year, such as specific numbers such as order volume, sales, and customer acquisition costs. They need short-term visible results to meet performance evaluation requirements.

2. Poor information communication

If the marketing department carefully plans a large-scale online marketing campaign, but does not fully communicate with the sales department about the details of the campaign, the target customer group, and the expected conversion path, the sales team may not be able to accurately grasp the rhythm of the campaign, resulting in missing the best time to follow up on business opportunities. Conversely, the sales department may not be able to effectively use the results of the campaign because they do not understand the market strategy.

For example, the marketing department launched a webinar for potential high-value customers, but did not inform the sales team of the specific invitation list and follow-up strategy. The sales team may know little about this event and be unable to prepare relevant product introductions and solutions in advance, thus missing a good opportunity to deeply explore potential customer needs and convert them into sales opportunities.

3. Data silos exist

The marketing department usually accumulates a large amount of data such as market research reports, competitive product analysis and customer demand insights, while the sales department has first-hand information such as real transaction data, customer purchasing behavior and after-sales feedback. If these data are not interconnected, the company may lose the ability to fully understand the market and customer needs, which in turn affects the scientificity and accuracy of strategic decisions.

For example, the marketing department may discover through research that a certain market segment has great potential demand, but if the sales department's transaction records show that the conversion rate in this market area is low and there are many after-sales service problems, then it is impossible to make a wise decision to adjust the strategy based on the data from the marketing department alone.

4. Unclear responsibility

When marketing activities fail to bring expected sales results, the two departments may blame each other, which is not conducive to finding the root cause of the problem and improvement measures.

For example, if a company launched a large-scale marketing promotion campaign, but ultimately did not significantly increase sales, the marketing department may think that the sales department did not execute well and did not fully utilize the traffic brought by the promotion; while the sales department may think that the marketing department’s activities were not positioned correctly and failed to attract real potential buyers.

II. Basic strategies for efficient collaboration in marketing and sales

The marketing department and the sales department are two indispensable departments for enterprises to complete the sales process, achieve business development, and build a long-term brand. They are the two generals of marketing work and must achieve efficient collaboration. In order to resolve the contradictions between the two departments and improve the efficiency of collaboration, enterprises should establish a cross-departmental coordination mechanism, clarify common goals, strengthen communication and information sharing, adopt an integrated performance management system, and enhance cooperation and consensus between the two parties through joint participation in strategic planning and project execution, so as to achieve efficient collaboration between the marketing department and the sales department.

To this end, companies can adopt the following basic strategies:

1. Shared goals and KPIs

In order to promote efficient collaboration between the marketing department and the sales department, it is necessary to first build a shared goal system that includes directions that both parties can agree on and work towards. For example, in addition to their respective independent KPIs (such as market share and brand awareness of the marketing department, sales and customer retention rate of the sales department, etc.), you can also set common KPLs (Key Performance Indicators), such as the quality and conversion rate of sales leads, the ROI (return on investment) of specific marketing activities, or the growth rate of new customers.

This not only respects the professional expertise and core tasks of each department, but also allows both parties to work together under a common performance goal. For example, within a certain quarter, joint promotion activities can be used to increase the market acceptance and sales performance of a new product line.

2. Establish a regular communication mechanism

In practice, the marketing department and the sales department can hold joint meetings regularly every week or month to discuss recent market trends, sales progress, changes in customer demand, etc., to ensure the immediate flow of information.

For example, the marketing department can first introduce the upcoming advertising campaigns, new product launches and other marketing plans to the sales department, and at the same time listen to the problems and suggestions encountered by the sales team in the process of customer contact, and fine-tune the marketing strategy accordingly to make it more effective. In turn, the sales department can also provide timely feedback on the effectiveness of the market strategy in actual application, helping the marketing department to continuously optimize.

3. Use CRM system to integrate data

Enterprises can use CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems or other integrated tools to unify the management of potential customer information, activity response data, etc. collected by the marketing department with the customer follow-up records and transaction data of the sales department.

For example, the marketing department attracted a large number of registered users through email marketing campaigns. The behavior tracks and interest preferences of these users can be synchronized to the CRM system in real time, so the sales team can quickly identify high-quality sales leads and improve conversion efficiency.

4. Collaborative planning and execution

When formulating a new marketing plan, the marketing department should invite the sales department to participate in the discussion so that the sales team can understand the design ideas and expected results of the marketing activities at an early stage.

For example, when preparing a seminar for B2B customers, the marketing department consulted the sales department during the planning stage to understand which topics would best attract the target customer group and how the sales team could follow up with participants after the meeting to convert event participants into sales opportunities.

5. Cross-departmental training and cultural integration

By organizing joint training, forming cross-departmental project teams and other working methods, we deepen the understanding and cooperation between the marketing department and the sales department.

For example, a cross-departmental sales and marketing training course can be organized to help marketing staff understand the difficulties of the sales process and sales staff understand the logic behind the marketing strategy. In addition, by jointly participating in internal company competitions or external cooperation projects, a corporate culture of unity and cooperation can be formed to enhance team cohesion.

6. Establish a mechanism to encourage feedback and incentives

Enterprises should establish and improve feedback mechanisms, encourage the sales department to actively provide the marketing department with feedback information from the front-line market, such as new customer demands for products, the latest developments of competing products, etc., and ensure that these feedbacks can be incorporated into the revision and improvement of market strategies. At the same time, a cross-departmental collaboration reward system should be established to commend and reward cases that have achieved significant results through the linkage between marketing and sales, and encourage all employees to actively seek and practice the possibility of cross-departmental collaboration.

For example, for a successful joint marketing campaign, outstanding teams and individuals will be praised and their performance will be included in the annual performance appraisal, thereby further consolidating the values ​​and practical awareness of collaborative operations.

3. Conclusion

The marketing department and the sales department are two indispensable departments for ToB enterprises to complete the sales process, achieve business development, and build a long-term brand. They are the two generals of marketing work and must achieve efficient collaboration. In order to resolve the contradictions between the two departments and improve the efficiency of collaboration, enterprises should establish a cross-departmental coordination mechanism, clarify common goals, strengthen communication and information sharing, adopt an integrated performance management system, and enhance cooperation and consensus between the two parties through joint participation in strategic planning and project execution, so as to achieve efficient collaboration between the marketing department and the sales department.

In summary, achieving efficient collaboration between the marketing department and the sales department is not only a core issue in modern enterprise operations, but also the key to driving sustained business growth and enhancing competitive advantages. By sharing goals and KPIs, establishing a regular communication mechanism, integrating data resources, collaboratively planning and executing strategies, and strengthening cross-departmental training and cultural construction, enterprises can break down departmental barriers in practice and unleash greater synergy.

In particular, on the basis of encouraging two-way feedback and setting up incentive mechanisms, the enthusiasm and innovation of both parties will be further mobilized, thereby giving birth to more accurate and effective market strategies and sales execution plans. Only in this way can enterprises rely on the high degree of coordination between the marketing department and the sales department in the ever-changing market competition, continuously optimize product services, capture market opportunities, and improve customer satisfaction, and ultimately achieve the optimization of the entire process from brand building to sales conversion, driving the steady growth and sustained success of the enterprise.

Author: Chen Hao

WeChat Official Account: Brand Market Relativity (ID: Brand-Marketing)