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Sales and Marketing are ultimately judged on the same metric, but they act on different timelines. Sales focuses on the short term as it races to meet monthly and quarterly quotas. Marketing has a slightly longer term, nurturing prospects into Sales-ready leads.

Despite their different outlooks, Marketing and Sales can forge more profitable relationships by creating a two-way flow of information.

Here's how marketing automation (along with an old-school method) can sync Marketing and Sales to drive revenues.

Deliver as much data as possible

The first stage in collaborating with Sales: track the heck out of your prospects with marketing and CRM systems.

Every email opened. Every page a prospect looks at. Every guide downloaded. Deliver every crumb of information about prospects to Sales so sales reps can see the entire progression of the lead.

By knowing whether a prospect is hot on the trail of one offering and cooler on others, the sales rep can customize a pitch to that specific customer's wants, needs, and interests.

Don't just tip a wheelbarrow of data onto their desks, though. Data is important, but insights are gold. Enable Sales to perform better by providing context for the data. Include a summary of pain points that prospects have, and provide the best positioning options (qualification questions, supporting content, and other resources).

Timeliness is also essential. If Marketing sees engagement from someone or multiple people from the same company, the sales department should know so that it can act quickly. Sales reps who follow up a Web lead within five minutes are 21 times more likely to get the lead entered into the sales process than if they follow up after 30 minutes.

Score activity and contact

Lead scoring automatically rates prospects based on an activity score and a contact score. The more points prospects rack up, the more qualified they are to meet the sales team.

An activity score adds or subtracts points based on a prospect's actions. If a prospect downloads a whitepaper, her lead score will rise and she will move closer to meeting with Sales. If a prospect receives but doesn't open several recent emails, his score drops as his inaction indicates a lack of interest.

A contact score considers factors about who has engaged your business, such as whether the prospect is male or female, from the East or West Coast, a representative from a small or large business, and more.

For example, you can target prospects by their title. B2B companies selling higher-priced products often find their best prospects are higher-ups or people with "director" or "vice-president" in their title.

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Automation: How Marketing Can Sync With Sales

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of You Mon Tsang

You Mon Tsang is CMO at Vocus. Prior to Vocus, Tsang was CEO of Engine140, a company Vocus acquired and integrated into its product portfolio.

LinkedIn: You Mon Tsang

Twitter: @youmon