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If you’ve worked in any organisation with internal sales and marketing resources, you’ll be aware of the underlying tension between sales and marketing teams. The degree to which this tension plays out will differ from team to team but one common scenario is that the sales team will take full credit when sales targets are met but when they fall short, the finger is often pointed at the marketing team who are not generating enough quality leads. On the flip side, marketing might be generating loads of leads but when the close rate of the sales team starts to decline, the marketing team points the finger at the sales team.
There are various such blame-game scenarios, but this lack of harmony in whatever shape it takes has a negative impact on overall organisational performance and needs to be addressed. In this blog post, I outline how to go about it.
Larger organisations tend to have a more mature, formulaic approach to sales & marketing alignment — and critically, they have the resources to do execute and are resilient to dips in performance — but smaller enterprises need to figure this dynamic as best they can to ensure the tug-of-war isn’t between internal departments but instead a unified battle against competitors. This is very achievable regardless of the size of your team or availability of resources and it starts with shared goals.
This starts with having a clear picture of the structure of your sales pipeline. In a typical B2B environment, it will consist of some or all of the following (labels may differ depending on CRM / sales process):
Awareness > Interest > Consideration > Decision > Purchase
The desire is to have a unified effort from sales & marketing across the pipeline. The sales team will have different marketing requirements at different stages of the pipeline e.g. early in the funnel (Awareness), sales may not be actively involved at all as the marketing team tries to capture the attention of a growing audience, whereas late in the funnel (Decision) the sales team might need content like a free trial, ROI calculator, customer testimonial etc. as a final nudge to get a prospective customer over the line. This alignment in effort must be collaborative and is discussed later in this article.
This co-ordinated effort should be evaluated on shared metrics like qualified leads per month, conversion rate by channel, average time to sale — all of which encourage co-operation between sales and marketing. Team-specific goals are still functional e.g. revenue targets, number of deals closed, Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) per month etc but greater emphasis (and shared reward) on the shared goals will drive better overall performance.
With shared goals, allocation of your marketing budget becomes a little bit clearer as it is aligned directly to your revenue target. Depending on factors like your stage of growth, margins, sales cycle length, brand awareness and expected Lifetime Value (LTV) of your customer, marketing budgets will differ considerably. B2B companies should typically be allocating 8-12% of revenue to marketing, so a €1 million revenue target would require a marketing spend of €80,000 – €120,000. This might sound like a luxury to your business and contexts differ from industry to industry but a 2024 Gartner CMO survey backs it up.
If your average deal size is €5,000 and 60% of your business has to come from new customers, your sales team will need to close 120 new deals.
€1 m revenue target / €5,000 average deal size X 60% New Business = 120 new customers
So what does this mean for your marketing team? This will depend on your sales teams close rate but let’s assume that the sales team closes 20% of Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) — that will require 600 new SQLs. The current state of your sales pipeline and what represents the most efficient spend for high-quality lead generation for your business will help to determine how you allocate your marketing budget across the various pipeline stages.
At this stage, with a revenue target of €1m, you’re potentially spending €120k across your marketing efforts. How much of that is going into salaries and benefits? If you have full-time team members, that leaves a lot less for design, advertising spend, software platforms, video, events etc. which can make it very challenging to build a high-performing marketing machine. You need the man hours of a digital marketing expert but you also need the marketing collateral — this could be a troublesome ‘chicken and egg’ scenario. This underpins why consultancy can be a key differentiator when it comes to creating a successful marketing strategy — get years of expertise to create a body of work ahead of time for any new recruits. Effectively you can prove the case for hiring in marketing.
Each sales pipeline stage needs tailored digital content to support the sales process. The balance of this will depend on your context but should include some of the following:
This alignment with the sales process ensures prospects are being warmed up in a way that matches how sales will eventually engage them. It deviates from the ‘before and after’ approach to marketing and sales but when done right, provides a better customer experience from the outset and also works for generating revenue.
Automation comes in when you have a process that works but it’s vital to be able to walk first before you start to run. Automated email workflows and CRM tools like Pipedrive, Hubspot, Marketo, Salesforce etc. allow you to score leads based on available data (engagement, behaviour, profile/persona data). Lead scoring is a system for ranking leads, primarily for B2B companies, based on their likelihood to convert into sales. Lead scoring helps companies to make sure they’re focusing their efforts on the most promising opportunities.
Starting with even a basic system will help to ensure only sales-ready leads progress through to the sales team. Instead they are focused on the leads that have already progressed through the funnel, while the marketing team devises campaigns to attract more visitors and nurture them through the pipeline. This can be an adjustment for the sales team too, who might want to talk to all opportunities so it’s up to the leadership to ensure sales and marketing personnel are focused on the task at hand.
How your sales and marketing team interacts will be a critical component of a successful marriage. Regular sync meetings between marketing and sales are crucial. What kind of leads are converting best? Where are prospects getting stuck or ghosting sales teams? What content is resonating with prospects? Marketing can learn from this feedback to refine ad targeting, content messaging and lead nurturing workflows. Marketing and sales should function as one continuous system — not as isolated departments pointing fingers at each other when the chips are down.
The idea of marketing being a cost centre and not a driver of revenue needs to be flipped on its head. When digital marketing and sales work in tandem — sharing goals, data and tactics — you build a high-functioning growth engine. Aligning strategy with your pipeline not only fills your funnel with the right prospects but accelerates the journey from lead to loyal customer. The shared ownership of revenue metrics across sales and marketing is a starting point for this improved performance.
