Sep 30, 2024

Bridging the Divide: 8 Essential Best Practices for B2B Sales and Marketing Alignment

In many of today’s large and medium-sized B2B organizations, sales and marketing teams operate like an army and navy that struggle to cooperate even though they’re both branches of the same military, fighting for the same side. While they share common business goals, their day-to-day operations, differing metrics and competing priorities can create friction, inefficiency and even disarray. However, when these two powerhouses align and build synergy, they become an unstoppable force, driving customer satisfaction and revenue growth to new heights. This blog covers fundamentals for flying in formation.

Why invest resources in sales and marketing alignment?

Before diving into best practices, it’s crucial to understand why alignment matters. When sales and marketing teams work in harmony, they create a seamless customer journey, improve lead quality and ultimately boost revenue. Both teams’ efforts reinforce each other. Companies with strong sales and marketing alignment achieve 20% annual revenue growth on average. According to McKinsey’s “Future of B2B sales: The big reframe” report from November 2022, only 8% of B2B organizations were set up to deliver highly personalized marketing. However, of that 8%, three-quarters reported growing market share.

Personalize customer experiences for growth

With a quarter century of B2B specialization, our agency has seen significant benefits in aligning sales and marketing efforts, particularly in delivering personalized experiences to customers by coordinating sales and marketing touchpoints. A weak marketing strategy leaves B2B companies at a disadvantage—limiting lead generation, customer acquisition, brand visibility and account growth. Likewise, without a robust sales and customer success plan, converting leads into profitable clients becomes an uphill, costly challenge.

Companies that successfully break silos and align these teams to provide tailored marketing are much more likely to see market growth from the competitive edge they gain. Realizing this, some C-suites are even going a step beyond aligning to combining sales and marketing teams into one revenue-generating unit, highlighting the value of sales and marketing alignment in the B2B space. These revenue units are often called revenue operations or revops, revenue teams or revenue organizations. McKinsey reports that “creating new leadership to oversee marketing and sales—and beyond—is quickly proving to be a necessary move to understand and harness today’s increasingly complex customer journey and digital-sales channels.”

8 best practices for achieving sales and marketing alignment

A hand ready to touch a large computer screen with avatars and connected elements displayed.

1. Define key buyer personas

Sales and marketing teams need a shared understanding of their main purchasing decision-makers to message with one voice across the buyer journey. Collaborate to create detailed buyer personas that encompass marketing insights and sales experiences. This unified view ensures that all efforts are directed toward the same target consistently, maximizing efficiency and effectiveness.

Sample buyer persona document.

An example of a typical B2B buyer persona. Image source: SEMRush

2. Establish shared goals and KPIs

Imagine a rowing team where half the rowers aim for speed while the others prioritize distance. Chaos ensues. Similarly, sales and marketing must align their objectives. Set shared goals that span the entire customer journey, from initial awareness to closed deals and beyond.

These might include metrics like:

  • Lead quality score
  • Conversion rates at each funnel stage
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)
  • Revenue growth

3. Implement a closed-loop reporting system

Information should flow freely between sales and marketing. Implement a closed-loop reporting system where marketing can see what happens to the leads they generate, and sales can provide feedback on lead quality. This continuous feedback loop allows for constant optimization and improvement. A good customer relationship management (CRM) system can make this practice an easy one to adapt.

4. Leverage technology for seamless customer information integration

Technology can be the bridge that connects sales and marketing. Implement a robust CRM system that both teams can access and update. Integrate marketing automation tools with sales platforms to ensure a smooth flow of information and leads. A CRM system gives both teams a shared platform where they can see real-time data on leads, campaigns and customer interactions. Marketing can track how their efforts impact the pipeline, while sales can dive into detailed lead profiles to tailor their outreach approach.

With everyone working from the same data, there’s less miscommunication, smoother handoffs and a more unified strategy for closing deals. Ultimately, CRM-sharing ensures both teams are aligned on the same goals and moving in sync. This technical foundation supports all other alignment efforts. Just be sure not to become overly reliant on your tech bridge.

5. Develop a shared language and definitions

Miscommunication can be like a game of telephone gone wrong but with real business consequences. Establish a common vocabulary for key terms like “qualified lead,” “opportunity” and “customer.” This shared language eliminates confusion and ensures everyone is on the same page. If you’re all on the same CRM platform, the terms and metrics tracked there will be aligned.

Woman brainstorming content ideas by writing on a paper with pen.

6. Collaborate on content creation

Content is the fuel that powers marketing campaigns and sales conversations. By involving sales in the content creation process, marketing can produce materials that directly address customer pain points and objections encountered in real sales situations. Collaborating results in more effective content that drives results throughout the funnel.

A great example of sales and marketing collaboration comes from a B2B tech company that noticed its prospects were getting overwhelmed by overly technical white papers. After hearing this feedback firsthand, sales worked with marketing to simplify the content into more digestible, real-world case studies that directly addressed customer pain points. The result? Prospects responded positively to the new format, saying it felt more relatable and actionable. Engagement rates ticked up and more qualified leads went to the sales team to close, showing how content crafted together can hit closer to the mark.

A man pointing at a virtual futuristic screen hovering in the air above his digital tablet. The screen shows a map of a customer journey with decision branches and arrows pointing to other steps.

7. Create a unified customer journey map

Think of the customer journey as a relay race. Marketing runs the first leg, generating awareness and interest, then passes the baton to sales to close the deal. By creating a unified map of this journey with visibility of all customer touchpoints, both teams can understand their roles and handoff points clearly, ensuring a smooth transition and consistent customer experience (CX).

A unified B2B customer journey map ties together all the key touchpoints a prospect goes through, from first discovering your brand to becoming a long-term customer. It covers everything: awareness, engagement, nurturing, the decision-making process and post-sale support. By aligning the journey across teams, you’re improving customer experience while making it easier to close deals and build loyalty.

8. Implement regular cross-team meetings

Communication is the lifeblood of alignment. Schedule regular standup meetings between sales and marketing teams to discuss wins, challenges and upcoming initiatives. These meetings foster understanding, build relationships and keep both teams informed of critical developments.

The meeting cadence you choose should depend on the volume and complexity of collaborations. Weekly meetings may be necessary for one team while monthly works best for another. If your company uses project management software, create a dashboard for these cross-functional meetings so you can go over each deliverable together.

Real-world challenges and solutions

Challenge 1: Misaligned metrics
A global software company found that their marketing team was celebrating a record number of leads generated, while the sales team was struggling with low conversion rates. The root cause? Marketing was incentivized purely on lead volume, not quality.

Solution: The company implemented a lead scoring system jointly developed by sales and marketing. Marketing’s KPIs were adjusted to include quantity and quality metrics, aligning their goals more closely with sales outcomes.

Challenge 2: Content disconnect
A manufacturing firm’s sales team was frustrated by the lack of relevant content for late-stage buyers. Meanwhile, the marketing team was producing volumes of top-of-funnel blog posts and whitepapers.

Solution: The company established a content council with representatives from sales and marketing. This group met monthly to review content needs across the entire buyer’s journey, ensuring a balanced content strategy that supported early-stage awareness and late-stage decision-making.

Challenge 3: Data silos
A healthcare technology provider found that their sales and marketing teams were working with different sets of customer data, leading to inconsistent messaging and missed opportunities.

Solution: The company invested in a unified CRM platform that integrated data from sales and marketing sources. They also implemented data governance policies to ensure data quality and consistency across both teams.

Male and female business professionals putting hands together and performing a team cheer after a huddle.

Aligning your teams

Aligning sales and marketing is not a one-time effort but an ongoing process of collaboration, communication and continuous improvement. By implementing these best practices, B2B organizations can create a powerful, unified front that drives growth and delivers exceptional customer experiences.

Remember, the journey to alignment may have its challenges, but the destination—a high-performing, revenue-generating duo—is well worth the effort.

Ready to transform your sales and marketing alignment? Elevation Marketing, the global leader in insight-activated B2B marketing solutions, can guide you through this critical process. Contact us today to maximize the revenue-generating capacity of your sales and marketing teams to drive unprecedented growth.

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