There are practical reasons why sales and marketing occupy their own different worlds. They have different jobs to do, even if both are ultimately about making a company’s offerings compelling and easy to buy.
But when sales and marketing become outright disconnected — which happens more than it should — the results can be frustration, lost opportunities and wasted resources.
Portage Sales President and Founder Peter Meyers and I decided to do a video series together to share some concrete solutions for bridging the sales and marketing divide. We started with a poll to identify the biggest alignment challenges for sales and marketing teams. By far, mismatched messaging was one of the biggest problem areas we found.
In this first episode, Peter and I dive into the root causes of this issue and explore practical strategies for solving them. Here’s a short summary of the episode. Watch the full video for more insights.
What happens when messaging gets misaligned
The short answer is that inconsistent messages send mixed signals, which in turn creates confusion among prospects and friction between sales and marketing teams. In the end, that can cause:
- Hesitation: Potential customers don’t know what to think, which makes them reluctant to spend.
- Lost opportunities and lower close rates: Eventually, that hesitation and confusion about your value proposition can drive prospects to look for something that makes more sense to them.
- Wasted resources: If sales disagrees with the story marketing is putting out, they won’t use the materials marketing has produced — no matter how much time and money have gone into them.
How does messaging get misaligned?
In many organizations, sales and marketing report to different leaders, have different reward mechanisms, and engage in vastly different day-to-day activities. That can create silos with negative consequences:
- The marketing echo chamber: Marketing teams invest significant time in crafting product positioning and value propositions — without sales or customer input. No wonder these efforts often miss the mark when they get used in customer conversations.
- The lone wolf sales force: Salespeople operate out in the world, engaging constantly with customers. This gives them invaluable perspective that can refine marketing strategies — but they don’t always share what they know with marketing, and marketing often doesn’t ask.
Bridging the messaging divide
While the challenges and their impact are real, they are not insurmountable. There are some surefire ways to close the messaging divide:
- Leadership-driven collaboration: Leaders have to motivate front-line sales and marketing staff to work together, and then support them in taking the time to get messaging right. It is crucial to ensure both teams are aligned from the top down.
- Face-to-face interactions: Leaders should promote regular, informal interactions between sales and marketing teams. Simple actions like joint lunches or trade show attendance can foster mutual understanding and discussions around what’s working and not working with the messaging.
- Joint pitch practice and training: Joint practice sessions where marketing presents their pitches to sales and vice versa provide a practical, immediate way for each team to share their expertise and make messages better. Seeing how each other uses and adapts the messaging builds confidence and ensures consistency.
What’s your experience with sales and marketing alignment on messaging to customers? Have you faced similar challenges or found effective solutions? Reach out to us via email or on our socials with your thoughts. And stay tuned for the next episode where we tackle lead quality and follow-up.
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