Your Guide for Facilitating Marketing-Sales Alignment

Your Guide for Facilitating Marketing-Sales Alignment A productive, cross-departmental conversation is an essential first step toward alignment. But where to begin?

I. Sell Alignment Internally Getting the upper levels of your sales team bought in is a prerequisite for success.

1.

Email Sales Leader(s) and Schedule a Meeting

Sample email: Hi [Name], I’m reaching out because I’d like to get together and discuss ways in which our departments can better align. The marketing team is actively working to better enable the sales team, and we’re keen to get your input throughout this process. I’d love to put an hour on your calendar to share with you our goals for this effort and gather your input. Looking forward to chatting more about how we can work together! [Signature]

2.

Prepare for the Meeting Build a short slide deck laying out the case for improving alignment and include an agenda in the meeting invitation. Take the time to understand the sales perspective.

Sample agenda: →

Introductions and objectives overview

→

Discussion of sales needs, goals, and major pain points

→ Identification of stakeholders for further discovery

kapost.com | 2010 14th St., Boulder, CO, 80302 | (720) 696-6000

→→ Discovery format ◊

Suggested: Online survey with follow-up interviews

→→ Timeline for discovery, analysis, and presentation of findings

3.

Hold the Meeting Take the time to understand the sales perspective.

Suggested discussion questions: →→ What are your department’s primary objectives? →→ How does your department measure success? →→ How do you track which assets sales reps share? →→ What complaints do you hear most often from sales reps regarding their relationship with marketing? Conclude by assigning task owners and deadlines for the next steps.

Suggested next steps: →→ Sales leader(s): Send explainer email to sales team(s) →→ Marketing: ◊

Launch survey

◊

Interview respondents

◊

Gather findings

◊

Present findings

Tip: Don’t begin phase two until the sales leader sends an introductory email to his or her team to set expectations and explain the purpose of the process. They’ll be much more compelling advocates for alignment than you will!


II. Understand Sales Pain Points The best way to understand your sales team is to go directly to the source. The best way to do this will differ depending on your organization, but here’s what we would do:

1.

Build and Distribute a Preliminary Survey Begin with a simple online survey for members of the sales team. Keep it short to encourage completion.

Suggested questions and answer options: →→ Where do you look for marketing content? ◊

Google Drive

◊

Salesforce

◊

My own hard drive

◊

Other: _____

→→ How often do you search for marketing content? ◊

Every day

◊

Once or twice a week

◊

A few times per month

◊

Never

◊

Other: _____

→→ What content are you creating yourself? ◊

Decks

◊

Emails

◊

Product pages

◊

Other: _____

→→ What segmentation is important for you? ◊

Geographic region

◊

Persona

◊

Company size

◊

Industry

◊

Other: _____


→→ What types of content do you share most with prospects? ◊

eBooks

◊

White papers

◊

Blogs

◊

Webinars

◊

Decks

◊

Videos

◊

Other: _____

→→ Does marketing create the content you need? ◊

Yes

◊

No

◊

I don’t know

→→ What go-to pieces of content do you use? →→ What content would be useful that doesn’t exist today?

2.

Schedule Interviews Choose individuals or groups of survey respondents and conduct interviews using in-depth, open-ended questions.

Suggested questions: →→ What’s not working about the way you look for content today? What would improve the

process (e.g., curated content collections, filters, etc.)?

→→ How do you talk about personas and buying stages? →→ Are there particular contexts or personas for which coverage should be stronger? →→ What’s not working about the way you share content today? In an ideal world, how would

this process work for you?

→→ What’s not working about the strategic content planning process today? Do you feel that

your needs are heard by the marketing team?

→→ What would great marketing-sales alignment look like from your perspective?


III. Build a Roadmap 1.

Establish KPIs to Measure Success of Alignment In order to prove your progress and the value of investing in alignment, determine key metrics you can measure to prove that processes are improving for both marketing and sales.

Suggested metric: wasted time Establish a baseline of how long salespeople spend each week searching for content to share with prospects. Using average salary data, calculate how much money the company is losing on this time. As better processes reduce hours spent, calculate the financial impact of this improvement on the sales organization and the company as a whole.

2.

Reconnect with the Sales Leader(s), Share Your Findings, and Agree on Next Steps Pull together your most compelling insights into a few key points. Then, explain your proposed KPIs and how you plan to achieve and measure them. Ask for feedback, and finalize your decisions in writing.

3.

Establish a Timeline for Progress Agree on a recurring date (e.g., every two months) to reconnect and assess the progress made on your agreed-upon success metrics.

IV. Execute What you do next is up to you. If you need personalized advice, consider calling in the experts. The Kapost Professional Services team will assess the current state of your content maturity, clearly articulate your vision and roadmap, and provide personalized, strategic plans to achieve your goals—no Kapost software required.
