A simple and not so surprisingly effective marketing and sales plan that achieves qualified leads & sales

The disconnect between marketing and sales departments is something we see more often than not and produces marketing and sales plans that are not as effective as could be. A collaborative effort between these two business units is the simplest method to improve your digital performance, grow revenue and for your sales teams to take the leads generated by marketing seriously.

Many marketing and sales units operate in silos and lack a generally agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a qualified buyer, thus lowering the quality of marketing leads. Furthermore, customer messaging and content provided for the potential customer is likely inconsistent and/or conflicting – depending upon the source of the information (sales or marketing) with statistics indicating that a potential buyer spends up to 15% of their time reconciling conflicting information due to this disconnect.

Collaboration between different business divisions is essential in 21st-century organizations, with a focus on achieving a mutually agreed-upon profile of who the ideal qualified customer is, who is most likely to buy, and what messaging and content is required to assist prospective buyers to become customers. This united approach sees sales and marketing aligning their online and offline activities and efforts, resulting in increased awareness, effective messaging, faster sales cycles, and a pipeline full of qualified prospects that sales teams are keen to chase.

Key questions for engagement and collaboration between these business units include:

• Who should we target?
• What should we say?
• What are their online and offline experiences and expectations, and how are we or will we meet them?
• How are metrics being tracked across the entire sales funnel?

Collaboration and alignment between marketing and sales will help organisations achieve strategic goals such as acquiring more customers, increasing customer satisfaction, cross/up-selling; improve return on investment to improving customer retention.

To perform well and generate qualified leads using digital marketing activities such as search engine optimization (SEO), paid media to social media marketing, campaigns and more requires at its core a website that offers an optimized and intuitive digital customer experience, consistent messaging across all channels aligned to what has been agreed upon as an ideal customer and buyer profile.

About Ignite Media

Ignite Media is a B2B marketing and sales agency helping organisations overcome their marketing, sales and operational challenges so that they can build trust and credibility, make more money and look good.

We develop websites and digital solutions; execute and manage digital marketing strategies for your business long-term sustainable success. Feel free to reach out for a free first consultation today.