A fellow marketer from the B2B Marketing Exchange, Regina asked: “How do I get my marketing peers to shift their thinking so they focus on helping sales achieve their goals?”
I’ve discovered that, in enterprises, budget, business goals and measurements influence how marketers behave and function as a team. If your marketing peers are not supporting sales, one of the possible reasons may be that their marketing objectives or success measurements are not set up to motivate that behavior.
So my first question to you, Regina, is, how are success metrics are established in your marketing organization?
The next question that I want to ask is more philosophical: Should all marketing functions support sales directly and promote collaboration with sales? Well, my thought on that question is probably not.
Some marketing functions are very much aimed at the top of the funnel, focusing on as social media posts, traditional TV commercials, and even big billboards you see on highways or big shopping centers. These types of marketing efforts are still critical to building awareness, but it’s hard to quantify their contributions directly to sales. Customers need to be aware of the existence of your products before they can consider or evaluate your offerings or services. Top of the funnel activities are hard to tie with sales directly.
However, some marketing functions such as email marketing, event marketing or demand generation campaigns are easier to tie to sales. In this case, you are right it’d be great that these marketing teams could work with sales directly. As their peer, I’d encourage you to influence and educate them about the benefits of working closely with sales. A great example is a close tie with sales can showcase their contribution to the bottom-line.
The best way to help shift their mindset and behavior is with a top-down approach: The VP of sales and CMO are aligned on several key initiatives and these key imperatives are part of the marketing plan. The CMO articulates how these initiatives will impact the team. Then, have measurements to monitor the progress. This will be ideal to drive behavior changes. You know how it is. The boss says that this is what we need to do. Ok, we’ll do it then.
Regina, it’s hard to get all the marketing peers to align. Do what you can to influence and educate them, at the same time, work with your management and get their buy-in.
Again, send me your questions if you want to learn more about collaboration with sales. You know where to reach me.
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Keep hustling, my friends. You got this.
What can Pam Didner do for you?
Being in the corporate world for 20+ years and having held various positions from accounting and supply chain management, and marketing to sales enablement, she knows how corporations work. She can make you and your team a rock star by identifying areas to shine and do better. She does that through private coaching, keynote speaking, workshop training, and hands-on consulting. Contact her or find her on LinkedIn and Twitter. A quick note: Check out her new 90-Day Revenue Reboot, if you are struggling with marketing.
