Think sales and marketing don’t work together? Think again!

How this growth marketing agency marries up two key roles…

It’s something we see time and again here at The Growth Guys. Too often, marketing and sales departments act in isolation, leaving them directionless.Now, this is by no means an attack on the everyday digital marketing agency. Many are small, with one or two people pushing the brand while the business development manager is out ‘in the field’. Indeed, many directors prefer their sales teams to be remote, but without regular check-ins, they could be damaging their growth strategy.So how do we make sure these departments align? First, we dispel some myths.

Myth 1: Marketing is just promotion.

If that were the case, we’d all have substandard products and even worse sales. This is often why many firms overlook marketing – they see it as showy promotion rather than valuable research.In truth, it’s all about the 4 Ps: product, price, promotion, place. We need to ensure our product continues serving consumer needs. A salesperson can feed back crucial market research, for example reactions to a product’s pricing and USPs.On the flipside, marketers can analyse where they generate most leads, for example trade shows versus social media advertising. They can give this information to sales teams to generate the best ‘place’ to find new business.

Myth 2: Sales are only relevant at the conversion stage of the funnel.

The sales funnel’s four fundamentals are Awareness, Evaluation, Conversion and Loyalty. Marketers could simply drive awareness and ‘leave the selling’ to sales. If they work together, however, they’ll have a far bigger ROI.Let’s start with awareness. Marketing builds a Facebook campaign promoting an event attended by your sales teams – increasing awareness two-fold. Once you’ve generated a lead, sales teams give customers the chance to ‘evaluate’ with a client pitch. Meanwhile, marketing analyses which techniques generated the new lead.The sales team signs on the dotted line: conversion. But marketing still has to deliver, always listening to customer insights and refining the product to satisfy needs. Hence, we have loyalty – one department focuses on remarketing, while the other builds on existing relationships.

Myth 3: Businesses can grow without marketing.

“We threw loads of money at Facebook and got nothing back, so we stopped.” As a Facebook marketing company, we hear this a lot. This prompts us to ask: why did you really stop?In today’s competitive landscape, reduced cost-per-acquisition is critical. That CPA will only increase if you have no strategy. Stop your research and you’ll waste time targeting the wrong audience. Stop your promotion, and nobody will know you’re there. Worse still, it allows competitors to gain market share.

Let your teams complement one another.

As a digital ad agency, we can’t tell you how to manage your employees. What we can tell you is that, by staying in touch, your sales and marketing teams will achieve that #1 goal – growth. For more information on growth strategy, contact us today.