The strongest-performing companies bring Marketing and Sales together.
Companies that are "best-in-class" at aligning marketing and sales departments had a 20% average growth in annual revenue, compared with a 4% decline among "laggard" organizations, according to Aberdeen Research. Moreover, 66% of companies reporting complete alignment made their revenue goals, compared with just 41% that reported no alignment, a recent study by Demand Metric found.
However, in today's fast-paced environment, keeping the sales team up to date and aligned with marketing is tougher than ever. But there's hope.
Mobile technology offers one of the most effective ways to support marketing-sales alignment and boost sales: 23% more firms meet team sales quotas when employing a sales mobility strategy, according to Aberdeen; and companies that use mobile business apps increased win rates 26%, according to a recent Yankee Group survey.
With the growing number of mobile devices in the hands of employees, marketers now have an efficient means of getting feedback from the field, as well as tools to better support the sales team on-demand.
Improve lead conversion by better supporting Sales
Buyers have taken control of the sales cycle. With seemingly unlimited online resources, the buyer now has more power than the seller in many cases. Therefore, it is essential for sales reps to be prepared for their next cold call, meeting, presentation, or negotiation with key information about prospects, their company, and the marketplace. But, sales reps often can't quickly and easily find the materials they need.
Traditional marketing and sales strategies lack the ability to address those challenges, often resulting in lost opportunities and revenues. However, marketers can use mobile technology to provide sales reps with the right content at the right time, while increasing lead conversion and sales.
Making pertinent information such as product details, prices, inventory, and Web demos available remotely enables the salespeople to easily access the most accurate and timely information when they need it most. The more quickly salespeople can get to information crucial to move their prospects through each stage of the cycle, the more they will stand out from the competition and ultimately make a sale.
Create a knowledge support system the sales team will actually use
In traditional training, 80% of what employees learn is forgotten within 30 days if the training is not reinforced and incorporated into daily work habits. Similarly, remote reps need to be connected to data, know-how, and one another in the field to reinforce what they've learned in their initial onboarding. Modern mobile technology provides the perfect platform for doing so.
Technology gives us the ability to build a comprehensive mobile-ready library around every aspect of sales and marketing that's easier to access on-demand to support customer-facing interactions. Plus, push notifications can alert reps of product updates in real time, as well as send company news and information that can help win business—such as playbooks, recent company awards, and client testimonials.
Use mobile to increase marketing productivity
Marketers are struggling to get appropriate and actionable feedback from sales reps on what would really benefit them during the sales cycle. In the meantime, they are spinning their wheels creating content assets that are not being used because Sales can't find them or doesn't know when to use them in the selling process.
When mobile sales enablement tools are implemented correctly, Marketing can gain insight into what sales materials get the most use and they can gather feedback from comments and rating systems. Such real-time data bridges the conversation gap between the two departments and enables Marketing to focus its time on what really matters. The ability to track and support activity from lead to close is directly related to eventual success, and it can help shorten sales cycles by enabling Marketing to better support reps with relevant information at the right time.
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Today, mobile sales-enablement tools are creating new and better ways for marketing to support sales reps in their customer interactions. Many teams are now looking toward mobile-ready sales-enablement technology to bridge the gap between Sales and Marketing; the adoption of such technology will be a defining aspect of successful businesses from now on.
Streamlining content updates and making them easily accessible, on demand, enable sales teams to remain in sync with up-to-date content so they can sell anytime, anywhere. Plus, offering data-capture and tracking capabilities provides marketers with insight into what is working and what the sales reps need so that the marketing team can focus its activities on providing the most effective resources.
