4min
There's no shortage of advice out there when it comes to creating the best marketing and sales plan. Should you focus on alignment between your marketing and sales teams? Should you focus on lead generation? Or should you focus on customer retention? But with so many different voices and opinions, it can be difficult to know which direction to go in.
One key element that should be considered is alignment. All too often, marketing and sales teams are working in silos, with little communication or coordination. This can lead to inefficient use of resources and a lack of focus on the most effective strategies.
So, it's only understandable that things go unnoticed in your overall strategy. You may be missing these things right now from your marketing and sales strategy. Here are the top things you should include.
- Marketing and sales alignment
- Innovation and risk-taking
- Resource analysis
- Workable tactics
1. Marketing and sales alignment
Having aligned goals and adequate resources are key to any successful marketing plan. To make sure your marketing plans go as smoothly as possible, it's important to pull resources from various departments within the company - with a special focus on these two in particular.
Overlooking this step in your marketing and sales strategy plans is more common than you might think - and it often leads to wasted budget and resources. When sales and marketing teams aren't aligned, up to 70% of B2B content goes unused. This means that important resources like time, money, and manpower are being wasted because they're not working together efficiently.
A successful strategy requires alignment in goals and great communication between both teams, affectionately referred to as Smarketing. The term Smarketing is a combination of the words Sales and Marketing and it refers to the close alignment between these two departments in an organisation.
For a company to be successful, the goals of the Sales and Marketing departments must be aligned. Furthermore, there must be great communication between these two teams to ensure that the company is moving in the right direction. When both roles work in tandem, marketing decisions can be made more effective and results can be tracked.
2. Innovation and risk-taking
Even if you're getting results from the same channels and marketing strategies you've used in the past, resist the urge to only stick with what you know. There's always room for improvement, and new data may reveal opportunities for growth that you didn't know existed. Keep your eyes peeled for emerging trends, and don't be afraid to experiment with new ideas.
As marketing trends continue to evolve, video and voice search optimisation are becoming increasingly important. Video is also becoming an increasingly important tool for marketing. As consumers consume more and more content online, video is a great way to capture attention and communicate messages. Businesses need to ensure that their videos are optimised for search and that they are creating engaging and informative content that will appeal to their target audience.
If you want to stay ahead of your competitors, you need to optimise your website for voice search. Voice search is a trending topic in SEO, and it's only going to become more popular in the future. With the rise in usage of voice assistants like Google Assistant and Siri, people are more likely to use their voice to search the internet for what they need. This means that businesses need to make sure their website and content can be found through a voice search.
Don't wait to invest in voice search optimisation - by the time your competitors catch on, you could already be miles ahead.
3. Resources analysis
Keep your sales strategy plans afloat by accurately estimating what your marketing and sales teams can handle. Underestimating or overestimating your team's abilities can scuttle even the best-laid plans. The experts on your team are there for a reason, so trust their judgment and give them the credit they deserve.
A good customer relationship management (CRM) platform will give you an overview of your customer's journey and how your marketing and sales team play a role in it. Both departments must understand this so that they can do their jobs better. CRMs provide insights into the customer journey and bridge the gap between the two teams.
It's important to keep your employees happy and challenged with engaging projects, but you also don't want to overwork them and risk losing their valuable talents.
See if your proposed plan is feasible with the current resources available by asking your marketing and sales team members. Determine if you need to revise your plan and if you need to provide additional support to your teams.
Your marketing team can enhance the sales process by creating helpful collateral that your sales team can utilise. Sales teams can use email templates, videos, educational guides, and blog content to improve their performance.
It's important, to be honest about your current capabilities and resources before setting SMART goals.
4. Workable tactics
A shiny new trend doesn't mean that you scrap all of your previous marketing and sales strategies. It can be quite advantageous to build upon what's already working. The key is to be thoughtful and strategic about how you incorporate new trends into your existing marketing and sales plans.
The following are a few examples of highly viable marketing strategies:
- Organic search drives more than half of the traffic to a website
- Outbound marketing is three times less effective at generating leads than content marketing
- A mobile-friendly website can make the difference between your visitors purchasing and not buying
- A study found that 75% of marketers increased their traffic by using social media marketing
- 70% more conversions occur with retargeting ads
If your business is struggling to generate leads, it's understandable that you might need some help planning your sales strategy. Fortunately, there are lots of helpful resources available to businesses that want to improve their lead generation. Real Inbound is one of those resources. We specialise in sales and marketing strategies that can help you get the leads you need to grow your business.
Our marketing and sales team is here to help
Looking to make the most out of 2023 and beyond? Then it's time to start setting your sights higher and achieving more than ever before. And one of the best ways to do that is by generating better leads.
At Real Inbound, we can help you identify the steps necessary for generating more leads and achieving your goals.
