What happens when you take a sales team and integrate it with a marketing team? You get smarketing – a whole new revenue operation.
The sales and marketing divisions of a company have always been distinct. Each team division fulfils its own aims and outcomes. Nevertheless, the sales and marketing operations share some objectives, namely, to win over new customers and to generate more revenue.
Both operations have distinct viewpoints. When they integrate, they can target new business growth more effectively.
Keep reading to discover the benefits of smarketing. And, how to create a new revenue operations department within your company.
What Is Smarketing?
Smarketing means combining sales and marketing to achieve one common set of objectives by integrating these two separate systems. The point is to create a whole new system specifically designed to drive your organisation’s opportunity funnel.
It means harmonising the following sales and marketing elements:
- Processes
- Strategies
- Content
- Technology
- Analytics
When you combine these elements, your company sends out the right message to your target customer at the right time through every step of the buying process. Ultimately, you get a more efficient system for revenue generation.
Aligning these two business operations, sales and marketing creates one new department. Or, one new revenue operation. This is known as the revenue engine.
Revenue operations include all the elements needed in optimising the running of this revenue engine. It involves people, processes and technology that interact during your customer lifecycle.
How to Use Smarketing
In times past, a consumer would approach a salesperson for the information they needed. Now, everything is available online and consumers readily do their own research. Marketers need to implement marketing strategies such as SEO and PPC to guide their target customers to the right information.
This means that marketing operations have a greater impact on the buying cycle. Therefore, it’s necessary for marketing and sales teams to work together to convert information-seeking prospects into repeat customers.
The benefits of smarketing include the following:
- The whole revenue operation gains a clear picture of the ICP (ideal customer profile)
- You win more targeted accounts
- Better messaging is a reality
- Strategies such as marketing funnel and sales pipeline are improved
- Sales cycles become shorter
- You get a better overall ROI (return on investment)
Let’s elaborate on some of the benefits of smarketing.
Clearing up the ICP
Through smarketing, the sales and marketing teams gain a clear, comprehensive picture of the ICP. Salespeople add valuable insights from their interactions with prospects and customers. They have a deeper understanding of target customers, their pain points and motivations.
In turn, marketing people provide research data around customer behaviour and online engagement. This is useful to salespeople in determining those likely to buy and how best to close deals.
When these teams join their efforts, they create a complete ICP. This is one way that smarketing harmonises and strengthens the efforts of both teams. Without a clear ICP, your sales and marketing teams won’t carry out their strategies effectively.
Improving the Marketing Funnel
Once you’ve established the ICP you can re-develop your marketing funnel. Both teams are responsible for specific phases of the marketing funnel.
The funnel determines when leads should get transferred from marketing to sales. And, it decides who cultivates the leads. This ongoing communication between the two operations improves this process.
Smarketing Cloud
Sales Cycle and Targeted Accounts
To win targeted accounts, you need to focus most of your resources on those that fit your business best. And, those that will generate the most revenue. ABM (account-based marketing) requires a lot of input from your sales and marketing teams.
Their combined efforts mean closing the deal and retaining loyal customers going forward. Smarketing makes both teams more efficient, reducing costs and shortening the sales cycle.
Moreover, marketing provides data around sales engagement with online resources. Salespeople can use this information to tailor their pitch decks. So pitches become more effective, resulting in closing deals in shorter timeframes.
Additionally, marketing and sales work together in determining what characterises a promising lead. As well as implementing filters to remove the ones that don’t fit.
With only high-quality leads, both teams can generate amazing growth at a reduced cost. This translates to an increase in your revenue, and, a better overall ROI.
Transforming Your Teams
Perhaps the concept of smarketing really resonates with your business goals. But it can be tricky to implement a new way of doing things. By leveraging a marketing agency, you can transform your teams into a revenue engine.
The great thing about marketing agencies is that they have the people and resources. They already have a talented team that knows what they’re doing. You can use their professional experience without losing time on hiring new people.
They also have their own marketing technology and services and they will show you how to use the data you have to connect with your market. This is a perfect way to generate high-quality leads.
Smarketing Cloud is a marketing agency that will help you attract more paying customers. By using their people, processes and technology, you can successfully expand your revenue and customer operations.
Revving the Engine
The world of business has seen rapid change in recent years, with many companies shifting their focus to a greater online presence. This shift has brought about the necessity of rethinking the way revenue is generated.
Separate sales and marketing divisions used to work. But, not so much anymore.
Creating a new smarketing department starts the ignition of your company’s revenue engine. This dynamic new department runs more efficiently to maximise your revenue.
Perhaps you’d like to transform your existing teams into a finely tuned revenue engine. Or, maybe you want to implement smarketing best practices. Whatever the case, Smarketing Cloud offers expert resources to drive your business.
To find out more, contact Smarketing Cloud here.
