Lead Nurturing

Marketing vs. Sales: The Need for Collaboration in B2B

The current roles of B2B marketing and sales have changed rather dramatically, in concert with the roles of the buyers.

Ivelin Radkov/AdobeStock

July 10, 2022 , Alan Brawn

On the surface, defining the roles of B2B marketing and sales is almost self-explanatory. Marketing tells the story of the company, product, and/or service, and sales is the transaction process where said item or service is transferred (sold) to the customer for a defined or negotiated price. Obviously, the two roles are inexorably linked, but today both marketing and sales are taking on a new and expanded role. It is our task to see how this new dynamic works. A word to the wise… it is much more complex than it appears.

Back in the day (and into the new century), marketing teed the ball up for sales to ride in on their trusty steed and inform a prospect all about the product or service. If the need was there, a sale was (almost) imminent. Marketing got the attention of a potential customer and then sales filled in all the blanks with a plethora of information. Back in the day is not, and I repeat, not today! The current roles of marketing and sales have changed rather dramatically, in concert with the roles of the buyers.

The expanded role of marketing cannot be overstated. Research shows that 70% to 90% of a buyer’s decision to purchase is made before involving sales. With so much information at their immediate disposal, buyers no longer need to wait to get their information from a salesperson. They get information (aka. marketing) online via search engines, websites, and email marketing campaigns that target them, and then they share what they find internally.

Speaking of sharing internally, according to Gartner research, the number of stakeholders inside a company “helping” to make buying decisions has gone from just a few to 12 or more, and they all may be gathering information independently. File this under “drinking from a firehose;” and yes, it can be confusing… and in some cases, contradictory to the buying team. Seems like a good time for sales to step in (…just saying).

Enter the salesperson and their new role with the buyer and stakeholders. Their role is no longer being the primary delivery of information… their role now begins with actively listening, and they become problem empathizers, identifiers/emphasizers, and then solvers. A key part of their role is to help focus and amplify the implication of the problems in the minds of the buyers, and then bring forth (aka. sell!) their unique solutions.

This will typically entail separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff of online information that the buyer and stakeholders have collected, and lead to closing the sale. As we can see, the tasks for marketing and sales is quite different than either one used to be, so let’s begin with what marketing and sales are.

What Is Marketing in B to B?

At its core, marketing is dissemination of information. It informs potential customers (and reminds existing and past customers) about a business, educating them about how the products or services offered meet their wants and needs, and demonstrably solves problems.

Marketing develops value propositions (or Unique Selling Propositions – USPs) that answer the questions of why a customer should buy from a particular company, instead of the competition, and in some instances why do anything at all. Marketing research targets customers to find those that would be most interested in a product or service.

They discover what those companies need and (most significantly) in what ways the company’s products or services best meets those needs. At a more sophisticated and granular level, marketing research even delves into the buyer’s persona, pain points, sense of value, and motivations.

As we noted earlier, most marketing can be accessed online. This may take one or more of the following forms, but all use lead generation techniques to drive new prospects and entice new customers.

Content marketing, i.e., blogs, articles, white papers, and podcasts.
Email marketing targets certain segmented audiences.
Social media marketing, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn.
Search engine optimization (SEO) optimizes website content improving search engine results.
Pay-per-click marketing places your ad where your customers are searching and pay per click.
Print marketing, such trade publications if the readership aligns with your target audience.

More sophisticated marketing teams use a combination of the above. This allows them to segment their target audiences so the right people are receiving the right messages at the right time. The goal here is to create and collect leads for sales follow up.

What Is Sales in B to B?

In the most simplistic sense, B2B sales converts marketing generated leads into customers, but it is far from that simple. Sales includes all of the activities that are necessary to sell your company’s product or services.

It involves the assessment of real leads versus “tire kickers”, and then contacting the leads and setting up an appointment. While marketing is a broad approach, salespeople work to build relationships one-on-one. They enter into conversations and conduct a needs analysis. They answer questions and address objections. They become a trusted partner and problem-solvers for the client. They provide pricing of products and services and prepare proposals or quotes. For sales in systems design and integration (design/build) it involves working with the engineering team per the scope of work, and once the design is complete, a handoff to the integration team. At signoff sales gauges customer satisfaction with the hope for repeat business or good referrals to others.

As noted, sales is complex and has evolved beyond the proverbial “Fuller Brush” sales approach of knocking on a door, showing the product, and getting an order. In a recent Gartner research project, they identified the top three priorities of sales organizations in the U.S. They were account growth, improving manager effectiveness, and enhancing pipeline activities.

Each area requires a standalone focus to optimize results, but in the end they all work together.

What’s the Difference Between Sales & Marketing?

There are distinct differences between sales and marketing, but as you will see they are symbiotic. There are many attempts to address the differences, but I think the team at InTouch Marketing say it most succinctly; they include the consensus of most subject matter experts in what I consider an easily digestible way.

Goals:
- Marketing
  - Promote the company, its products and/or services
  - Generate leads
  - Focus is typically long-term using campaigns
- Sales
  - Function as brand ambassadors for the company
  - Close sales
  - Focus is typically short-term on achieving sales goals
Plans:
- Marketing
  - Define product and/or services
  - Identify and describe target customer
  - Price product and/or services
  - Determine how to market product and/or services
- Sales
  - Create a sales action plan
  - Determine sales process
  - Define team structure – territories, etc.
  - Determine sales goals
Strategies
- Marketing
  - Online Marketing
  - Print Marketing
  - Email Marketing
  - Social Media Marketing
  - Video Marketing
- Sales
  - Conceptual Selling
  - Value Proposition Selling
  - Solution Selling
  - Benefits Selling
  - Inbound Selling

Focus of Sales & Marketing in B2B

The primary focus of both marketing and sales is to generate revenue for the company. The primary goal of marketing is to look at the big picture and promote the company, product or service, and brand. The marketing message needs to communicate how the product fills customer’s needs and wants. The marketing team needs to determine who is most likely interested in this product or service, and where they can find them. Finally, marketing focus and goals are often longer term because campaigns can span over the course of many months.

For sales, it is all about hitting individual and team quotas. The focus and goals are shorter term, measured month by month, quarterly, and then annually. A sales team converts those who have been made aware of the brand, product, and service into customers. Sales involves closing the deal. If you look at the overarching goals of marketing and sales to generate and increase revenue, it appears (as noted before) symbiotic. Right?

Unfortunately, for many companies, marketing and sales departments are still separate and distinct with the prevailing attitude on both sides of “never the twain shall meet”. Knowing the realities of the market today and how companies buy, keeping the message creator and the messenger separate instead of working together impedes a company’s success and profits.

It’s more important now than ever before, for these two departments to work together. Although their tasks are different, sales and marketing are connected and share a common goal… to attract prospects and turn those prospects into customers. As noted in a Harvard Business Review article, “When businesses understand that both functions are critical to the buyer’s journey, and recognize that by working in alignment, they can continually improve strategies and processes, they can produce better results.” This begs the question as to why this new concept of togetherness is necessary.

The equation of 1+1=>2 is irrefutable. Sans marketing, buyers won’t be informed about the company, product, or services beyond world of mouth. Sans sales, the company might not be able to meet their revenue goals and stay in business. Working together they compound on each other’s strengths. According to HubSpot, organizations with good alignment of marketing and sales achieve 20% revenue.

Focus of Sales & Marketing

Although their tasks are different, sales and marketing are connected and share a common goal… to attract prospects and turn those prospects into customers. As noted in a Harvard Business Review article, “When businesses understand that both functions are critical to the buyer’s journey, and recognize that by working in alignment, they can continually improve strategies and processes, they can produce better results.” This begs the question as to why this new concept of togetherness is necessary.

The equation of 1+1=>2 is irrefutable.

Sans marketing, buyers won’t be informed about the company, product, or services beyond world of mouth. Sans sales, the company might not be able to meet their revenue goals and stay in business. Working together they compound on each other’s strengths. According to HubSpot, organizations with good alignment of marketing and sales achieve 20% revenue growth on average annually.

Those that have poor alignment saw revenues decline by 4%. One noted proponent of departmental collaboration points out that “Other benefits of aligning the two teams include better communication, improved transparency, and an overall better collaborative environment.”

He points out that collaboration is win/win. “For example, because of the relationships they build with customers, sales professionals are in an excellent position to provide useful feedback and customer insights to the marketing team so that they can continually improve products, positioning and understanding of the buyer’s journey.”

Admittedly, collaboration becomes a diplomatic endeavor. Some might even say quagmire. All too often, here is how it goes… marketing comes into a meeting to present their exciting new campaign they are ready to roll out. They are emotionally involved but they truly believe it is going to make leads and product sales soar. The sales team listens to the marketing plan and are skeptical.

They wonder why marketing didn’t get their input about their customers who they know so well. One pundit described it this way, “By the time it gets to the questions and answers part of the meeting, it has already gotten combative. Sales is asking loaded questions that indicate that they have their doubts that this is going to work. Marketing is getting frustrated because they feel that sales is sabotaging their efforts.” Let the beat go on!

Both sides need to be brought to a (non-combative and neutral ground) table. Both sides need to know and accept what the other contributes, and that the collaboration is for the greater good and “results in a powerful combined force for your company’s growth.” As the kids might say, let’s get real. One marketing guru noted, “Marketing has the skills to create valuable content and knows how to push it out through the channels that will reach your ideal customer. This content will provide the information your potential customers are looking for, breaks down difficult concepts that educate them and helps generate leads that sales can follow up on.”

A sales guru chimed in with, “Sales, on the other hand, has valuable insights into who your target customers are and the challenges they face. Sales representatives speak to customers on a daily basis, so they can help direct the content strategy by sharing what they know about your customers.” So, it only makes sense that combining these two departments will be a powerful force for your company’s growth. Both sides need to listen, because in reality they both are 100% necessary in the current world of business. Symbiotic? Yes.

Collaboration can take several forms but should include setting up a collaborative team or task group with goals and objectives.

Think of the old song Love and Marriage with the refrain that “you can’t have one without the other”. Many suggest using a formalized service level agreement (SLA) defining the roles, activities, and outcomes on both sides.

Not a bad idea, and a point of refence on who does what. An important component of this collaboration is measurement. You need to track marketing programs, lead generation, lead conversion, and the closing of sales. Measurement is a quantitative approach to continuous measurable improvement. Can we all say martech stack, please?

Marketing & Sales Strategy

Now that the need to collaborate is (hopefully) planted in the minds of both teams, this brings us to the combined marketing and sales strategy. Words to the wise working from the top down:

1. Know who the company is and why you are doing what you are doing. Kudos to Simon Sinek and his book Start with Why. For your own and your companies benefit read it.

2. Know the market, who and where to target, and the typical buyer profiles. Really know them, not just “of” them.

3. Know what you offer, and why your business, products, or services are the best choice (i.e., value propositions). The concept of “we are better” does not work. Everybody says the same thing.

If a consensus (marketing and sales) is attained on the points above, you will be able to deliver a consistent message about your products and/or services. According to Gallup, buyers seek consistency as one of the key building blocks of trust and their decision making. Now the nuts-and-bolts work can proceed, and it starts with the brand.

On the marketing side, a major task is to establish your brand identity and communicate what makes you unique from your competition. Gallup research tells us that many companies fail to perform because their prospects don’t have an impression of the brand and what they offer or why it’s better. This means there must be a formalized brand strategy. What does your brand stand for in the minds of customers? This is called brand equity, and it has to be earned and constantly replenished.

Brand equity is not easy to ascertain. According to a Harvard Business study, many companies internally have a lack of knowledge or misconception of what their brand equity is. The best way to research brand equity is to conduct a brand audit. This should involve looking from the inside out in a company, and from the outside looking in.

A brand audit should include interviews and questionnaires with employees (an inclusive cross section), vendors/suppliers, and current customers. It should be conducted by an outside source to ensure impartiality and avoid responses that have been influenced to respond a certain way. This will reveal the “truth” of a company’s brand equity and affect/influence the brand strategy… and how marketing and sales work together moving forward. Keep in mind it is all about the experiences you provide. This includes:

The products and services you provide
The images you communicate
The messages you deliver on your website, proposals, and marketing campaigns
The way your employees interact with customers
Customer’s opinion of you versus your competition

Think about it this way, creating brand equity translates into the amount of money a prospect will spend just because it is you.

Once the brand strategy is in place and a realistic view of the band equity is attained through a brand audit, it is time to get the message out. Historically this fell under what was called a “push” or “pull” scenario but today the terms used are outbound and inbound.

Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing is a traditional method of marketing, seeking to push messaging out to potential customers as far and wide as possible in hopes of landing a new customer. Outbound marketing includes activities such as TV and magazine ads, billboards, trade shows, direct mail, seminars, and cold calling. As one subject matter expert noted, “This old style of marketing involves interrupting people by advertising and other more intrusive techniques.” While outbound marketing still has a place, research shows that consumers are inundated with these “interruptions” and are increasingly finding ways to avoid them. I preach that the delete key is the most powerful one on the keyboard. Outbound marketing is more costly and research over the last decade shows that the ROI is much lower than inbound marketing.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is focused on attracting customers to your products and services. Your best prospects are searching for products online. The audience interest, want, and/or need has already been established. Over 70% of consumers begin their shopping journey online by searching for products, services, or content to fulfill a want, need, and/or solve a problem.

Information can be targeted at specific customers and written to help solve those consumer problems. Content can be engaging via interactivity with social media posts, blogs, reports, webinars, etc. Outbound can be an all-encompassing strategy across multiple channels and measurable through digital marketing software. Examples include:

Content marketing
Social media marketing
Email marketing
Search engine optimization

Perhaps the biggest rationale for an inbound approach is the ability to reach people, and to deliver the right message to the right viewer at the right time. Now all the research that has been done delving deeply into the target audiences, their pain points, their personas, and where they get their information comes into play.

Your marketing message and outreach can be focused on who is interested and most likely to buy and can be placed via a venue or channel where they are most likely to search for it and read it. It will tell you what method is more effective. In the end you can create a much more sustainable sales cycle, cut down on costs through increased efficiencies and make your company more profitable as a result of it.

The Bottom Line

On the combined marketing and sales side of the equation, what we are all trying to do is to find a way to reach the buyers, close the sale, and get customers to come back for more. In the B2B world, buyers want to know if and how your company’s products or services will ultimately benefit their company. We know that 70% to 90% of the decision to buy is done online before sales is even involved. We also know that over 70% of B2B buyers said that the single most influential aspect of any vendor’s website is “relevant content that speaks to my company.”

They also found that 64% of B2B buyers said that they selected their winning vendors because they “demonstrated a stronger knowledge of our company and its needs.”

By employing inbound omni-channel marketing with a judicious/select use of outbound, a company can familiarize, educate, and begin the sales process with potential, current, and former customers in a meaningful way. The message will be most effective if it contains an “emotional” component by addressing pain points and problems solved. Think of your brand as having a distinct personality that a person wants to be associated with. Use this in everything you do and create.

This makes the sales part of the equation more efficient and yes, more effective because the dissemination of information which was formerly the primary part of the sales job has been (mostly) done for them by marketing and in fact the buyers themselves. Now the salesperson can move on to a higher ground where value is added in the realistic hope of becoming a trusted advisor or consultant, and as trust grows, a part of the buyer’s decision-making team.

In the beginning I noted that marketing and sales looked simple on the surface, but that appearances aside, they are not. Both are dynamic, ever moving, and constantly changing, necessitating new and creative approaches.

Marketing and sales have taken on a much more complex and interrelated role. Research, understanding, and the attainment of knowledge is mandatory, and a moving and growing target. All of this collected information and data culminates in the physical and emotional manifestation of the marketing output. The new sales approach takes that marketing output to the one-on-one level and is proof that their combined efforts work. Perhaps it is time to take a look at your marketing and sales approach… and get them together.