Sales and Marketing alignment is both critical to achieve and difficult to measure.

If asked about the state of your Sales and Marketing alignment, you'd likely say it's better than ever. But our perceptions rarely tell the full story. In fact, alignment within most organizations is actually failing, according to a recent LeadMD and Drift study.

This article will walk you through more findings and outline how you can apply them in your own company to make a real impact on alignment—and organizational success.

1. Align around buyers and innovation

The best companies are completely—almost fanatically—buyer-centric. So it's not a surprise that the companies with excellent Sales and Marketing alignment were found to be highly aligned around their buyers.

Launching a stronger go-to-market motion requires a deep understanding of your buyers. You'll need to refresh your ideal customer profiles (ICPs) and all the go-to-market segments that come out of them.

Sales and Marketing also need to collaborate on defining ICPs early on. Typically, sales teams offer their feedback too late in the game, when Marketing has already invested significant time and resources. That leads to frustration and resentment, not to mention an inaccurate end result.

Work together early on and encourage Marketing to share its early-stage ICPs with Sales to get feedback before moving forward.

Next, set expectations around innovation in Sales and Marketing. The term "innovation" means different things to different people, so align both departments around its definition and purpose in your company. Let both teams know what it takes to succeed in innovating and how you plan to approach the process.

As you prepare to innovate, refresh your customer information if it hasn't been updated recently. That can easily be a six-month process that shouldn't be rushed.

2. Unify Sales and Marketing further

Now that you've updated your ICPs and go-to-market motions/segments, you should have a strong foundation for collaboration. But you still need 100% buy-in from both Sales and Marketing. Since you invited sales to participate from the get-go, you should be close, but there are usually tweaks to be made and more information to be shared before your foundation can be solidified.

Once you achieve that agreement between Sales and Marketing, both departments can work together to revamp the buyer journey accordingly. The groups will have their own actions to take, but they should jointly agree on the ultimate goals.

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Three Steps to Better Marketing and Sales Alignment

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Justin Gray

Justin Gray is the CEO of LeadMD. He founded the company with a vision to transform marketing via the use of marketing automation and CRM solutions. Reach him via jgray@leadmd.com.

LinkedIn: Justin Gray

Twitter: @jgraymatter