Its the start of a new fiscal year - Get sales and marketing aligned!

 

This is the beginning of fiscal year for many software companies. It is a good time to identify the areas where sales and marketing strategy is not aligned and address the gaps.  Without an aligned go-to-market approach, you will only get sub-optimal results.  Here are some important areas to consider:

• If the sales organization is targeting a few named accounts, does marketing run Account Based Marketing (ABM) programs for those accounts?  From specific executive-level briefings and targeted content-marketing based campaigns to personalized website experiences for visitors from those named accounts, marketing should also take a very targeted approach to those named accounts.  Success in cracking open those accounts, while a few in numbers, can have a huge impact on the sales organization achieving their targets.
• If the sales strategy is industry-focused, are your marketing programs, content, communications, and events aligned with those industry segments?  I have spoken to several CMOs who list their top five verticals in their go-to-market but lack enough industry content to drive their programs and customer engagement for those verticals.  An investment in white papers, thought leadership perspectives, case studies, ROI calculators, blog posts, byline placements etc. are all critical to demonstrating to your prospects your deep understanding of issues specific to their industry. Plus, they help with better web site engagement and SEO leads.
• Marketing operations, which publishes lead-to-opportunity performance of various marketing programs also needs to report on the performance of named account portfolio or industry-specific portfolio (i.e. what was the ROI from all programs across the health care industry). How can marketing say they are aligned with sales, but their marketing operations team measures and reports success across all programs for the quarter i.e. aggregate lead, MQL, SAL and Opportunity conversion metrics (or alternatively at a detailed campaign level), when the sales organization has a hybrid approach (combination of named accounts, industries and a horizontal segment approach).
• Product marketing, in addition to customizing the messaging to incorporate industry keywords, also needs to incorporate messaging for unique personas in an industry, if they are a part of the purchase process.  This is critical to building credibility with the prospects.  At many software companies, the product marketing creates cross-industry messaging for limited personas, while the sales organization is trying to knock-off additional named accounts in a specific industry, where they have won some anchor accounts.  At a minimum, product marketing must get visibility into the sales pipeline for the current and next quarter, so they can create specific messaging to help close deals.
• Are marketing program budgets by regions aligned with sales forecasts?  Otherwise, it will become difficult for sales to enter a quarter with a healthy pipeline in each of their regions/geographies. Misalignment can lead to attrition of good sales reps, because they don't have a good pipeline to work with.  Marketing should report pipeline creation numbers not only at aggregate level but also by regions or even territories.

Sales marketing alignment is needed at various levels – but it is essential for successful go-to-market results.  Its time to fix it now as you start your new fiscal year!