Align Marketing & Sales: How to Spot & Fix Misalignment in the B2B Market

Misalignment between sales and marketing teams can be detrimental to your company’s success. 

Both departments play crucial roles in driving business growth, but when they aren’t working together efficiently, it can lead to missed opportunities and lower revenue.

In this blog, we will discuss:

• Why aligning sales and marketing is important
• Signs your business doesn’t have marketing and sales alignment 
• Tips to align marketing and sales

Let’s dive in!

Why is it Important for Both Teams to be Aligned?

Now you may be thinking, “What’s the big deal? They do different things.”

Well, these two departments work hand in hand in bringing in new business, which is new revenue. 

Generate High-Quality Leads

When sales and marketing are aligned, the quality of leads improves. Marketing can focus on attracting prospects that match sales’ ideal customer profile, while sales teams can better engage these leads to close deals.

Seamless Lead Handoff

A smooth handoff between marketing and sales is essential. Misalignment can create confusion, leading to lost leads or poor follow-up. Aligning both teams ensures that no lead slips through the cracks and every potential opportunity is nurtured.

Consistent Brand Message

When both teams work cohesively, the brand message remains consistent throughout the buyer’s journey. Marketing sets the tone with awareness campaigns, and sales reinforce the message with direct engagement, ensuring clarity and trust with prospects.

Higher Conversions

Aligned teams have better conversion rates. Marketing brings in qualified leads, while sales efficiently convert them. Both teams can refine their strategies with shared goals, leading to higher success rates.

Improved Customer Experience 

When sales and marketing work together, the customer experience is more seamless. Prospects receive consistent, tailored communication from initial contact to purchase, building trust and strengthening relationships.

Increase Revenue

A well-aligned marketing and sales team ultimately drives more revenue. By focusing on the same objectives and working together, these teams can shorten sales cycles, close deals faster, and increase overall profitability.

Signs Both Teams Aren’t Aligned

Here are some red flags that indicate a misalignment between your sales and marketing teams.

Miscommunication

When sales and marketing teams aren’t regularly communicating, confusion about goals, expectations, and processes can arise. This often results in missed opportunities or poor execution of campaigns.

Leads Aren’t Converting

If your marketing team is delivering leads, but sales is struggling to close them, it could be a sign that the leads aren’t adequately qualified or that sales don’t know how to approach them.

Them vs Us 

A competitive mindset between marketing and sales departments can be harmful. Instead of working as one unit, they blame each other when things go wrong, which leads to inefficiency and tension.

Mixed Messages

Is your lead confused about who you are and your value? If prospects receive different messages from marketing and sales, it’s a clear sign of misalignment. Mixed signals can confuse potential buyers and damage trust.

Tips to Align Marketing and Sales Team

So what’s the roadmap to success? Here’s how to create a unified sales and marketing team that drives more revenue and success.

1. Align Goals

The foundation of a strong sales and marketing relationship is having clearly aligned goals. Both teams need to be on the same page about what they are working toward. 

Agree on key performance indicators (KPIs) that will measure success, such as lead conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, or sales cycle length. This ensures that both teams are not just chasing numbers but striving for quality leads and sustained customer relationships.

Defining unified goals also creates a shared sense of purpose.

2. Understand Each Other

Understanding each other’s challenges and processes is critical for fostering collaboration and empathy. 

While both teams aim to grow the business, their day-to-day responsibilities often differ, leading to misunderstanding or friction.

To ensure the two feel like a team you need to eliminate the them vs us mentality. 

Workshops and Training

Marketers should spend time with the sales team to understand the nuances of customer objections and negotiations. Similarly, sales should learn about the strategies behind content creation, lead generation, and nurturing campaigns.

Communication and Feedback Loops 

Sales teams have firsthand experience with customers and can provide valuable feedback about which types of leads convert best. In turn, marketing can share data on which content or campaigns are generating the most engagement.

Breaking Down Silos 

Encourage a culture of collaboration by having joint strategy sessions or team-building exercises. By humanizing the challenges both teams face, it’s easier to foster cooperation rather than competition.

3. Create A Buyer Persona

A well-defined buyer persona is the cornerstone of successful alignment between sales and marketing. By collaboratively building a detailed persona, both teams ensure they are targeting the same audience with consistent messaging.

Use data from both marketing and sales to build a persona that accurately reflects the ideal customer. 

Marketing can provide insights from website traffic, social media engagement, and email marketing. Meanwhile, sales can offer information from direct conversations with prospects and customers.

4. Align Qualified Leads

The definition of a “qualified lead” should be agreed upon by both teams to improve efficiency and success rates. Often, misalignment occurs when marketing generates leads that sales feel are unqualified, wasting time and resources.

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) vs. Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

Marketing may categorize leads as MQLs based on actions like downloading a white paper or attending a webinar. Sales, on the other hand, may consider leads qualified only if they meet certain criteria like budget, authority, or need. 

Defining these terms together ensures that leads passed to sales are primed for conversion.

5. Define Handover Process 

A seamless lead handover process is essential for preventing leads from falling through the cracks. Clearly defining how and when leads transition from marketing to sales helps avoid confusion and ensures timely follow-up.

Define Ownership

Define which team owns the lead at different stages of the buyer’s journey. For example, marketing may nurture leads with content and email campaigns until they reach a certain score, at which point sales takes over for direct outreach.

Create Follow-Up Protocols

Sales need to follow up on leads quickly and consistently. Studies show that the faster sales reach out to a lead, the higher the chances of conversion. Define SLAs (service-level agreements) between marketing and sales to ensure timely responses, and track adherence to those agreements.

Improve Your Marketing & Sales Alignment with Account Based Marketing

By recognizing the signs of misalignment and taking steps to bridge the gap, B2B companies can create a cohesive account-based marketing and sales strategy that delivers better results. 

With both teams working together toward shared goals, businesses will see higher-quality leads, better customer experiences, and increased revenue.
At Chatter Buzz, we work directly with your sales team to ensure we align our account-based marketing with your sales. Schedule a free strategy session to get started.