Sales and marketing teams often disagree about what constitutes a qualified lead. Marketing may prioritize volume and engagement metrics, while sales focus on buyer readiness and closeable deals. The disconnect leads to frustration, wasted resources, and hampers overall performance.
One thing everyone can agree on is that leads are crucial for growth. Poor lead quality and ineffective or delayed follow-up can (and will) have significant costs, including:
- Lost revenue — due to missed opportunities caused by unqualified leads and follow-up delays.
- Wasted resources — especially marketing spend, if marketing-generated leads aren’t properly followed up.
- Frustration and misalignment — for both sales and marketing teams, eroding morale and creating inefficiencies.
Peter Meyers and I explore the issue of lead management in Episode 2 of our Bridging the Sales and Marketing Divide series, bringing sales and marketing perspectives together to identify ways of driving alignment.
Why do Sales and Marketing see Lead Management Differently?
Each team lives in its own separate world. They sometimes report to different leaders, have different reward mechanisms, and experience vastly different day-to-day activities. All of this contributes to misalignment and inefficiency.
How Marketing Sees It
Marketing teams spend their time and effort generating demand for their company’s products and services. A successful campaign can generate a lot of leads — but to be useful to sales, those leads need to be qualified. Simply forwarding a list of names and contacts is unhelpful. Marketing should talk to sales and get their feedback on the lead list as quickly as possible to identify any that need further nurturing if sales doesn’t think they are ready yet.
How Sales Sees It
Sales teams prioritize leads who fit the ideal customer profile with clear buying intent, including budget availability and a sense of urgency, plus they want to deal with individuals who have decision-making authority or at least can be effective champions. Sales sees lead follow-up as a personal experience, which takes time. If marketing sends a lot of prospects, they can’t make the personal connections fast enough. This is why it’s as important to identify leads that need more nurturing as it is to find the hot ones.
Bridging the Lead Divide
If all it took was more communication, the Sales–Marketing disconnect over leads would probably not be such a big gap at so many companies. Strong leadership and communication between the teams is key, but there are other steps needed to bring sales and marketing together on lead management:
- Align goals and KPIs: Sales and marketing should align their goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure they are working towards common objectives.
- Agree on lead definitions: Establish clear definitions of what constitutes a lead at various stages of the sales funnel, from suspects and prospects to MQLs and SQLs.
- Outline marketing campaigns to sales: Inform sales teams about upcoming marketing campaigns so they understand what is happening and when.
- Review lead quality and metrics: Hold regular meetings to discuss lead quality and conversion metrics, ensuring both teams are on the same page.
- Establish feedback loops: Sales should provide detailed, actionable feedback on leads to marketing, which should be captured in the CRM system to ensure it is specific and actionable.
- Encourage joint training sessions: Conduct joint training sessions and workshops where both teams have the opportunity to understand each other’s processes and perspectives better.
Effective lead management is not a set-it-and-forget-it process. It requires ongoing tuning and collaboration between sales and marketing. By aligning goals, establishing clear definitions and fostering communication, companies can bridge the divide and enhance their lead quality and follow-up processes. This alignment not only reduces frustration and wasted resources but also drives growth and improves overall performance.
If you have any experiences or insights on aligning the lead management process, or if you’ve faced similar challenges, reach out to us via email or on our socials with your thoughts! And stay tuned for the next episode, in which we tackle sales collateral.
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