Are you spending lots of frustrating time trying to fill up your new business pipeline? But at the same time seeing lots of one off purchases from those customers before they disappear back off the face of the earth. Sales guys reckon the marketing guys are dreaming and vice versa? Have you thought about sales and marketing alignment agreement?
Or are you constantly coming up with new offers and downloads to try and entice clients to buy, only to see them come in, trial your product and service and duck back out again as if they’d never been there in the first place?
Or do you feel like you are spending more and more paid media to fill up the leaking bucket that is your sales process. Pouring more and more into the top to see less and less return on ad spend.
Many businesses I work with lack the ability to make sure their internal focuses and systems are designed to maximise the return on their individual customers. Rather they find themselves running faster and faster just to stand still.
There are many reasons for this, from a poor leadership team, to a lack of resources, like time or people. But one of the main ideas to pursue is to make sure you are plugging those holes in that bucket. And that means understanding what's happening in your business, from the initial sales process to the onboarding and after sales services you are providing. This has become known as sales and marketing alignment
And that means focusing on your existing business and your existing customers and up selling and cross selling to them as and when appropriate. It means building rapport internally and with your clients, and building genuine relationships based on your desire to provide a first class solution to them.
It means listening to their feedback and taking every opportunity to smooth out the sales process and make buying from you as easy and as frictionless as possible. It means adding to your ranges or taking away where the customer feeds that back. It means offering things you might never have thought of, or offering ways to buy no one ever has before.
Basically, it means putting your customers first, and running your business for them, and not for you, your shareholders or any other of the many short term objectives that consume us.
But as you know by now, that's easier said than done. But there are a few things to think about that will make all the difference.
Customer data
Having reliable, clean, safe, secure and accurate sales and marketing aligned customer data and sales records is essential to making sure you are able to make the most of your existing business. You need to believe in the data and trust it, and the only way to do that is to manage it in a powerful CRM system that keeps everything straight. Our partner Hubspot offers a free CRM that is the envy of the Martech industry.
Task Management
A good CRM system must ensure sales and marketing alignment and allow you to pre set tasks in advance as well as automate simple ones and even send out reminders at the appropriate time. Allocating specific, event based tasks to specific people in your business at the most appropriate time. Everything from making sure that a project is delivered on time to making sure you buy a birthday card for a favourite client.
Marketing Automation
Setting up really valuable content for your customers to show them new ideas and new ways of enjoying your products or services is a great way to begin the process of getting more from that leaky bucket. Setting up personalised and automated workflows for specific types of customers to receive specific types of information is just a few clicks away with a decent platform.
Powerful reporting
If it's not measured it's not managed. You need to know what works and what doesn't, and you need to know what to do to fix it. A closed loop reporting system bringing the disparate parts of the business and the various efforts of various teams together into one place is worth its weight in gold. Build a system that allows you to track activities and client led events with equal aplomb.
Insights
Powerful reporting leads to insight. Understanding the full picture of your business activities allows you to see into the future and to judge the way forward in an informed and reliable manner.
As with many new approaches or new ways of thinking, focusing in on the existing business to maximise return can feel a bit overwhelming at first. Talking to experts like the team at Real Inbound can set you up for a successful change programme and ensure you are setting off with the right ideas right out of the gate.
We are happy to discuss these topics and any others related to Inbound sales and marketing alignment at your convenience! Just fill click below to make an appointment for a free 1hr consultation