Marketing and sales are two crucial functions within all organizations. When their operations aren’t just happening parallel to one another—but rather cohesively through a network of support, feedback loops, and joint efforts—the effect on the company is substantial. In this article, we explore how a harmony between these two departments can, in a sense, create “magic” together, bringing success to their organization. 

The Differences Between Sales and Marketing

While the two frequently overlap, the differences between sales and marketing can be made very clear when considering the analogy of the sales funnel. While the sales team guides prospects through the funnel from discovery to conversion, marketing sits outside of the funnel pouring leads into the pipeline. These positions within and outside of the sales funnel also speak to the very different kinds of relationships and communications that each department has with prospects and clients. 

In sales, the relationship is very 1:1 with a potential or current client. The goal is to understand the individual, what their pain points are, what makes the company unique, etc. in order to find out how your products/services can help them and their organization. Ultimately, people do business with people they like, and building strong relationships in a 1:1 atmosphere is crucial for a successful sales process. 

Being outside the sales funnel, marketing takes on a 1:Many relationship and communication style. The goal is to cast a wide net within the marketplace by spreading the company’s story, building brand awareness, and establishing a sense of trust by displaying industry expertise. This then draws in the leads that can be poured into the sales funnel, qualified, and hopefully brought to a conversion by the sales team. 

How Marketing Equips Sales to Be Successful

The marketing team helps set the stage on which the sales team will be acting. As a fun metaphor for this relationship, we can consider golfing. The marketing team is the caddy that brings the golfer to each hole, and equips them with the proper tools, or club, for the different holes. Once everything is set up, the sales team, or golfer in this scenario, swings at the golf ball and, hopefully, gets a hole-in-one… or at least a hole out eventually. 

The marketing team sets the stage by building a recognizable brand with message consistency that tells the company’s story. This is supplemented by all of the tools that capture audience attention such as flyers, booth designs, swag, decks, whitepapers, etc. In addition to this collateral, marketing also handles the creation of mass outbound messaging including social posts, emailing, and other mass communication efforts. Together, these equip the sales team to be successful. 

How Sales Informs Marketing to Be Successful

In order to create effective marketing materials and communications, the marketing team needs to be informed by the sales team, as they are the ones interacting within the marketplace on a daily basis. The kinds of marketplace intelligence that should be shared include: common pain points of prospect companies; objections and concerns from potential customers brought up during the sales cycle; and industry hot topics. Utilizing this information in marketing materials can help capture the target audience’s attention and even reduce the gap of a long sales cycle. 

Another crucial operation that the sales team must engage in to ensure that the marketing team is properly equipped for success is a feedback loop. The marketing team is often not onsite for events and is not talking 1:1 with prospects, making it difficult, if not impossible, to gauge the audience’s interest. By providing clear and condensed feedback on how marketing efforts such as flyers, booths/backdrops, swag, mass emails, etc. are being received, the sales team equips the marketers with information to improve all marketing efforts going forward. In a similar vein, it is important for sales to communicate inventory levels with any physical marketing materials/swag so that replacements can be packed and ordered as needed. 

In short, having a line of open communication in which both marketplace intelligence and feedback are shared equips the marketing team to be successful both in general, and in the support they provide the sales team in the future. 

Side Events

Side events, such as activities and dinners, are an area in which marketing and sales significantly overlap. It is the role of the marketing team to handle the organization, and sometimes also execution, of these events, but it is the sales team that has to guide the client/prospect participation from pre-event to post-event. 

The organization of side events is a multifaceted process that requires juggling a variety of tasks simultaneously. It begins with researching what activities or restaurants are available and can accommodate the appropriate group size within a certain range of mileage of the city/town you are hosting in. From there, the marketing team will be gathering quotes and other information from each venue in order to compare and contrast them to determine which best fits the needs for the event that the company wants to hold while staying within budget. Once the venue has been selected, contracts are signed, and deposits posted, the team can begin creating all promotional materials for the event including social posts, fliers, emails, and sometimes even landing pages. If the event in question requires sponsors, this entails several extra steps of outreach and coordination, following which, the sales team’s participation in the process becomes crucial. 

While the marketing team has been busy prepping the event logistics and promotional materials, the sales team should be compiling a list of attendees for the event. Depending on the goal of the event, this list could include prospects, clients, partners within the industry, or any combination of the three. Once completed, the sales team needs to coordinate with the marketing team to facilitate the distribution of invitations and the management of RSVP lists. 

Onsight during an event, the roles of marketing and sales become intertwined in order to ensure a smooth and successful event. The marketing team handles setup, manages vendors, and assists with any necessary coordination such as a check-in table. Meanwhile the sales team’s job is to engage with the attendees and foster those 1:1 sales relationships. This engagement even extends to post-event outreach where the sales team should be messaging the attendees individually thanking them for attending and following up on any conversations from the event. 

These side events are a great example of how harmonious operations and relationships between marketing and sales teams bring success to an organization. 

Outsourced Marketing

While marketing is distinct from sales, a separate team or additional FTE is not always possible or most efficient for a business. To learn more about outsourced marketing products and services to support your receivables or financial services sales team, browse our offerings at brandingarc.com. 

About Branding Arc

Branding Arc is the only full-service marketing firm dedicated to the receivables industry. We help clients improve their reputations, collect more payments, recruit staff, and establish a strong online presence through the creation and distribution of compelling, targeted content across multiple channels.