How to Bridge the Gap Between Marketing and Sales

One of the chief issues arising between marketing and sales departments is the struggle to judge, value and attribute both the quality and quantity of leads. When things are good, marketing and sales departments will tout accomplishments and sing praises, but when closing rates and revenue growth stagnate or decline the gap between marketing and sales becomes apparent.

And what a gap it is! Tasked with lead generation, marketing is likely to point fingers at sales accusing them of poor follow-through and follow up on leads. Conversely, sales will point a finger right back and accuse marketing of generating low-quality leads that couldn’t possibly be closed by even the best sales process. Without an effective bridge for this gap, a downward spiral of “well it isn’t us” can lead to ineffective marketing and sales efforts, undermining the potential for the entire demand funnel.

FINDING THE GAP

There is a hand off at a particular point in every marketing and sales funnel where a lead is qualified and handed over to sales. The hand off, when not executed well, is where you find the gap in your process and this is where the bridge needs to be created. The goal is to make the demand funnel, wherein marketing is responsible for leads that are brought into the pipeline and nurtured to the point of sales activity and sales is responsible for converting leads to opportunities and providing demos and proposals, into a seamless single process.

CREATING A BRIDGE FROM MARKETING TO SALES

To properly construct your bridge you need to create a process of lead scoring and lead nurturing that attributes responsibility to different departments at each phase of the funnel. This means the guesswork is removed by processing each lead through a standardized system. On the marketing side, creating a framework of metrics by which to evaluate incoming leads is critical to a successful lead evaluation. All interactions with marketing events should be assigned a numeric value, for example a lead that views a webinar receives five points whereas a lead that compares products receives 20 points since their behavior indicates a closer proximity to buyer interest. Leads should be kept within the marketing framework until the lead score indicates a strong level of buyer interest and engagement, at which point the lead should be flagged for evaluation by sales.

Sales evaluation should not necessarily mean the lead has been handed off to sales, rather the evaluation process should allow sales to accept a lead after review or reject it and send it back to lead nurturing. Using key data points, sales teams should be able to thoroughly review the lead, everything from the outcome of their product review to whether they requested additional follow up should be included in the lead’s profile. If sales doesn’t qualify the lead as ready, the lead remains in marketing.

A TWO WAY STREET–OR BRIDGE

The only way to manage this process effectively is by ensuring the bridge between marketing and sales funnels leads in both directions. While the transition from marketing to sales is understood, leads not accepted by sales need to be returned to the lead nurturing process in marketing. Perhaps sales doesn’t agree that viewing a webinar and sending in a reply card is worthy of a sales account executive’s time. Marketing needs to be prepared to enter the lead into a follow-up series of marketing touch points to provide information that furthers progression down the funnel. Leads cannot simply be forgotten because sales did not accept them into the sales process yet.

MAKING IT A TEAM EFFORT

Of course, the best way to create a two-way bridge is by keeping marketing and sales departments on the same page. By including both departments in the development process lead scoring metrics, buyer interest signals and lead nurturing events are more likely to be successful since both sides interpretations of actionable events will be taken into consideration. Once the demand funnel has been setup a regular and consistent evaluation of what is working and what is not will also help prevent future hiccups and keep the pipeline moving smoothly in both directions. A smooth pipeline will ultimately result in higher close rates and revenue growth.