In our interview with JMR Sales we discuss:
As a digital marketing agency in Sutton Coldfield, we understand the importance of sales and marketing working alongside each other.
In this exclusive guest blog post, our partner JMR Sales and Consultancy outlines the importance of sales and marketing working together, arguing that the two departments rely on each other.
GUEST BLOG BY JMR SALES AND CONSULTANCY
Salespeople like to think of ourselves as independent – free spirits roaming the highways in search of our next conquest, resilient to the slings and arrows of outrageous rejections. We don’t need anyone, but everyone needs us.
Really?
Ridiculous and yet I have seen and heard such arrogance from salespeople I have
dealt with. ‘No man is an island,’ as John Donne said in 1624. He went on to
say that ‘every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main’, meaning
that we are far from being loners and we are dependent on many others. This is
as true for sales and marketing as it is in most walks of life.
HOW DOES MARKETING SUPPORT SALES?
For
salespeople, our customers need to have found out about us in the first place,
and this is where our partners in the marketing department play an essential
role. Raising awareness in an overcrowded market is of fundamental importance,
and nurturing this awareness and turning it into desire is imperative to
business success.
I
still fundamentally believe that advertising is an essential cost of production
in order to let your prospects learn that you have a new product or service to
sell. With no marketing budget, how are you going to tell prospects that the
product exists?
I
say ‘advertising’ but this is to over simplify the myriad of routes to your
prospect’s awareness. Good marketers know what prospects look like, where they
hang out at both work and play and which messages are likely to appeal to them.
Most salespeople do not.
This marketing investment
is designed to raise awareness and then to get an idea of the relevance of the product
(or service) in meeting your customer’s needs. This may take months of effort
using a multitude of routes and many variations of message before hopefully, something
resonates. Only if some of this effort, knowledge and a variety of messages
work will the phone start to ring.
HOW DOES SALES SUPPORT MARKETING?
Marketing efforts are imperative in the first stage of
the sales pipeline and will begin to build brand awareness with your target
audience. Then, your telesales team can begin to develop a rapport. The key aim
is to get a greater understanding of the prospect’s needs and see if we can
help them.
One of the key questions to be asked at this stage is ‘How did you hear about us?’ This
information provides the marketing team with feedback to channels that are
working.
Learning about
effective messages and routes to market is essential as good companies learn
what works and get amend their strategies accordingly. Modern marketing methods
may already reveal some of these answers electronically, but the qualitative
data provided through talking with your audience provides information about
what emotionally resonated with your consumers.
Once your salespeople progress to face-to-face
meetings, there are further benefits for both departments to capitalise on.
Your sales team must identify opportunities through questioning and listening, using
their soft skills, technical product knowledge and the process of taking the
customer to the point of making a positive decision.
As with marketing, this process might take many
meetings in a variety of formats before a decision is finally taken. Either
party (not just the prospect) might call off the process if they feel that they
are not right for one another.
WHAT BENEFITS DO THE MARKETING TEAM GET OUT OF A SALE?
Through face-to-face meetings, your sales team can listen to feedback and go deep on some of their questions so that they can understand things like competitor activity, product deficiencies, promotional opportunities and get their perceptions on the relevance on the product. This market research can be fed back to your marketing department and incorporated into new product development.
If sales and marketing see themselves as distinct ‘islands’ rather than part of the same continent, a high level of disjoint will ensue, meaning that funds will be wasted in both disciplines and customer feedback will be missed. A great way to solve this is to encourage accompaniments and even temporary job placements between the departments so that each discipline can ‘walk a mile’ in the other’s shoes. Common communication systems like CRMs will also help, but a shared set of values with the customer at the core is the best way to realise common goals for both sales and marketing.
EDGE CREATIVE
At EDGE Creative, we understand the importance of how sales and marketing must work together to achieve your business goals. This is why we work as part of your management team, getting to grips with everything about your business so that we can provide advice and support in the best way possible.
This blog is a guest blog supplied by Jonathan Ratcliff of JMR Sales & Consultancy.