[VIDEO] HOW DO YOU ACHIEVE SMARKETING ALIGNMENT?

In the previous video, we saw what Smarketing is and its importance for Inbound Marketing. In today's video, we'll see: How do you achieve smarketing alignment?

Let's talk about the best practices each team must carry out to stay aligned and reap the benefits of smarketing.

In essence, smarketing is all about goals.

There are five best practices for successfully aligning marketing and sales.

First, both teams must have the same business goals.

To achieve this, you must align marketing and sales around a single goal. In business terms, the typical goal is revenue.

A shared goal for a university could be the number of enrolled students. For a nonprofit organization, it could be the number or amount of donations.

 

Second, visitor and prospect goals must be tied to sales quotas.

If sales can't trust marketing to deliver leads, the teams aren't working together, and the level of success (or lack thereof) will be reflected all the way down to the bottom line.

Third, marketing and sales must have clear visibility into the progress of each other's goals. This way, each team knows how everyone is doing, and real-time adjustments can be made if necessary.

Fourth is basing compensation on the goals shared between marketing and sales. Money can be a valuable lever for driving organizational alignment.

Fifth, don't forget your buyer personas.

The marketing and sales teams are constantly communicating with qualified prospects, so expect to constantly find details you didn't have about your personas.

You need to keep everyone informed about these updates and improvements to the buyer personas at all times.

Let's look at these best practices in action with an example that shows Smarketing alignment:

In this example, we'll see how the leaders of the marketing and sales teams aligned their goals around revenue and how they managed to reach them by working as a team.

On the left, we see the marketing team leader; in the middle is the sales team leader.

These two leaders met and created a compensation structure for the teams based around a single thing: The sales team's revenue goal.

This forced both teams to focus on achieving their ultimate revenue objective and helped them stay aware of their progress toward their goal.

It also allowed them to celebrate their achievements together when they reached those goals.

This shared celebration of success reinforces the concept that these two teams are really each half of the same team: the Smarketing team.

All right, it's quiz time. Let's test what you know.

You have 10 seconds to think about it. Ready? Go!

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1

All right, let's see what the correct answer is.

It's not C - while the marketing and sales teams should be located relatively close to each other, many companies with multiple offices can run effective smarketing.

It's not A - because marketing and sales don't share the same leadership.

In many cases, this can be decisive, since the two directors have different experience in each field and should complement each other.

So that leaves us with B or D.

It's not D - good luck finding someone who wants to share their commission and still stays motivated to sell to the leads marketing sends them.

The correct answer is B - the marketing and sales departments must be aligned around the same company goal, so both teams are working toward the same result.

Smarketing can work for any company, regardless of its size.

In small and midsize businesses, it can help the Marketing and Sales Managers, but as the company grows, leaders can be chosen in each area to broaden the alignment.

And there you have it, the 5 Smarketing best practices.

Remember, both teams must have the same company goals, and the marketing funnel must be tied to sales quotas.

There must be visibility between both teams' goals; base compensation on marketing and sales goals, and make sure you have ongoing communication and education around your buyer personas.

Don't miss the next video, where we'll see how we can use best practices to guide the integration of both teams. Subscribe to our