When you align marketing and sales, don’t forget this step

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As you work to bridge the gap between your marketing and sales teams, you simply can’t forget about data. In fact, if your company suffers from the great sales-marketing divide, metrics might be the missing link.

We touched on this Monday, but today we’ll elaborate. Numbers and data link marketing to successful sales, and they make the relationship between the two groups more productive and positive than ever.

Data is equally valuable to both teams.

Understanding data from Google Analytics serves more people in your company than just the marketers. They need customer data to shape content and strategy, but sales teams need data to understand the value of the website and the information it provides. They can determine how to best nurture leads by better understanding their habits and interests.

Understand who visits your site and why.

If your marketing and sales teams are divided, chances are that your salesforce doesn’t understand who is visiting the website and why. Knowing what company a visitor works for gives a B2B salesperson the chance to connect with that company’s employees on LinkedIn or to reach out by email. Understanding what content a visitor looks at on the site helps sales teams match product to needs and sell effectively. Likewise, gathering information from the sales team after they’ve closed the deal helps marketers create content that works.

Encourage both sides to share the wealth!

After you’ve shared marketing analytics with your sales team, make it an integrated endeavor. Have the sales team advise your marketers on how leads behave at the end of the sales cycle. Share marketing data in return, along with perspectives on making it useful. Marketers can probably suggest ways to put closing the sale in the hands of science rather than luck – and that works for everyone.

Do you make data an integrated topic for your company?

Image via (cc) Colin ZHU

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