Sara Varni, SVP of Marketing at Salesforce shared best practices for achieving alignment between marketing and sales teams at Norwest's 2015 Demand Generation Summit.
4. Connect with Your Customers
in a Whole New Way
SNA
Terminal
Mainframe LAN / WAN
Client
Server
LAN / WAN
Client
Server
Thousands customer
interactions
connected
thingsBillions Trillions
LTE
Mobile
Cloud
Millions
5. Buyers Are More Connected to Information Than Ever Before
Website
Social Media
Email
References
Community
6. Buyers Are Now 60% Through Sales Cycle Before They Engage
With a Sales Person
ABOUT US CONSUMER
REVIEWS
SOCIAL
MEDIA
COMMUNITY
DISCUSSIONS
PRICING
PAGE
CONTACT
SALES
GOOGLE
SEARCH
60% of the buyer’s journey
is complete by the time he
or she reaches out to sales.
60%
In 2020, this rate of
completion is projected
to be 85% or higher.
85%
7. The Goal of Marketers is to Fuel Sales, But Most Organizations
Aren’t Aligned
Sources: SiriusDecisions
Email
References
Social
Website
Community
Marketing Sales
are unsatisfied with
sales and marketing
data alignment
63%
say sales and
marketing operations
alignment is poor
58%
8. The Impact: Sales is less productive & it’s harder to close deals
Sources: Business2 Community, Leap Job, Ovation Sales, Group,
Sirius Decisions, TopRankMarketing
of buyers want to wait
to connect with a
company until they’re
ready to buy
90% of cold calls result in
an appointment with
a customer
2%
average sales cycle
increased 22% due to
more people involved
in buying process
22%
on average, sales
people invest 6.25 hours
to set one appointment
6.25
10. Bridging the Marketing and Sales Divide
Marketing
Sales
Are you building killer content?
Does your website talk to core buyers?
Do you have the right tools to bring people back?
Are your sales teams enabled on
marketing content?
Do reps know which leads to
focus on?
Are reps empowered to run their
own campaigns?
11. Establish Yourself as the Domain Expert
Create brand agnostic, practical
content
Build a killer library, make things
easy to find
Focus on quality vs. quantity
Optimize for SEO
New category? Define it.
12. Make Sure Your Website Speaks to Your Core Buyers
Define buyer and influencer
personas
Focus on business value vs.
features
Make content contextual
THIS
NOT THIS
13. Create the Right Customer Journey
Build customer stories, videos and
other content to pull prospects
through funnel.
Leverage email nurture to
understand pathing.
AWARENESS
CONSIDERATION
CLOSE
14. Enable, Enable, Enable
Train sales on every piece of content.
Create talk tracks to make the
conversation consultative.
Lost time = lost pipeline
15. Empower Reps with Tools to Drive Their Own Business
Lead scoring to prioritize activity
Templates to add a personal touch
Self-directed campaigns to tailor
content to sales reps needs
16. Create the Virtuous Circle, Not the Vicious Cycle
Better Leads
Higher Rep
Productivity
More
Closed
Deals
More Customer
References
More
Awareness
42%
Increase in Sales
Revenue