One of the best drivers for inbound success relies on an approach we’ve all heard about. It happens when sales and marketing work in harmony.
Simply put, when your sales and marketing efforts are aligned, your company can sell more, sell better, and enjoy real gains in revenue.
Yet still, too many organizations simply don’t make sales and marketing alignment a priority.
Too often, the two teams work in silos, and not surprisingly, the revenue needle doesn’t budge.
We’re here to change that.
To help you refocus your priorities, we went ahead and rounded up 9 eye-opening statistics to get your sales and marketing teams in line and on track.
1. 50% of sales time is wasted on poor prospects.
Is your sales team prioritizing leads? Are they doing it effectively? Be sure you’re integrating marketing strategies that help salespeople focus their energy on leads with the most potential.
Lead scoring, for example, is a tried-and-true methodology that sets up your reps for even greater success. (Source: SalesHub)
2. 95% of buyers buy from someone who gave them content at each stage of the Buyer's Journey.
Your prospects—nearly ALL of them, by this measure—are far more likely to convert to customers if they’re part of the entire journey, not just the sale.
Whether your sales cycle is short, long, or somewhere in the middle, teams need to come together to create valuable marketing materials that are designed to help buyers overcome friction points known to come up in the sales process. (Source: SalesHub)
3. 65% of sales reps say they can't find content to send to prospects.
Building on the point above, the inability to access and leverage the right resources at the right time for prospects is a huge miss.
A collaborative approach, however, means salespeople can work with marketing right from the start, actually helping to inform the creation of marketing resources.
With this level of involvement, your reps will know exactly which resources exist and can pull from as needed throughout the sales process. (Source: Kapost)
4. 1 in 4 companies say their sales and marketing teams are either "misaligned" or "rarely aligned."
With about three-quarters of your competitors getting it wrong, this opens the door to opportunity among those who get it right!
Superior sales-marketing alignment can very well give your business a competitive edge in the B2B marketplace. (Source: HubSpot)
5. "Tightly aligned" companies achieve 24% faster three-year revenue growth and 27% faster three-year profit growth.
Sales and marketing alignment is invariably tied to revenue, and therefore, profits.
A collaborative approach creates more strategic, efficient marketing campaigns that result in more deals, more revenue, and accelerated growth for companies. (Source: HubSpot)
6. Misalignment between sales and marketing costs B2B companies 10% or more of revenue loss annually.
Here again, we see that the link between sales and marketing alignment and revenue is indisputable. (Source: HubSpot)
7. 35-50% of sales go to businesses that respond first.
Are you responding to leads within 40 hours (which is known to be the approximate average lead response time)?
Research shows that being well above average will put your sales team at a distinct advantage.
In fact, HubSpot recommends the best response time is actually about 10 minutes!
If speedy response times are not a priority for sales enablement, they should be. There are a number of marketing tools (for example, chatbots) that can be extremely effective in helping sales teams achieve this goal. (Source: HubSpot)
8. Sales and marketing alignment can help businesses become 67% better at closing deals.
Stop for a moment and think about this one before moving to the next point. 67% IS HUGE.
Any tactic that will supercharge your sales team to this extent needs no further explanation. (Source: Marketo and Reachforce research)
9. Only 12% of B2B buyers want to meet in person with a sales rep; and 71% start their process with an unbranded search.
Your prospects don’t want a face to go with your name… at least not yet.
They want impartial advice on their terms. That means digital marketing, starting with the entry point of search engines, are likely to initiate the sales process.
However, it’s important to make sure there are no major disconnects in the digital-to-human hand-off—so before engaging with your prospects directly for the first time, be sure you know where they are in the buying process based on the actions they’ve taken online. (Source: Accenture; ThinkwithGoogle)
Remember, next time you take a look at your overall goals—which for many companies include increasing sales and revenue—don’t overlook the importance of sales and marketing alignment as a proven method for achieving those goals!
