Do Sales and Marketing work as a team in your organization? Does Sales blame Marketing for not reaching their goals? Do you constantly hear Marketing isn’t bringing in enough qualified leads? As Marketing Manager at I have heard it all. Well, I guess I have to admit that I have grumbled a time or two “Sales doesn't know how to follow up on a lead.”
During these tough economic times it is vital that our teams work in reaching goals. Both of our teams are tasked with increasing revenue, attracting quality prospects and decreasing the time it takes to close a sale. However a few years ago the way we went about defining, meeting and measuring these objectives differed significantly. InterDyn Artis Sales and Marketing teams now strive toward common goals with the use of .
Last month Sales and Marketing met to discuss the 2010 marketing plan. We reviewed the 2009 campaigns tracked in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, looking closely at the following: leads and opportunities generated, closed sales, and ROI of the campaigns. From here we could determine the campaigns that needed some tweaking as well as which ones to continue with… if it’s not broken don’t fix it. We also determined how many CRM, and clients we needed to add in 2010 in order to generate x revenue dollars. CRM gives me insight as to the marketing mix that brought in our leads last year. The question I ask…do I have a marketing plan that will support these goals.
The marketing budget is approved; now it’s time to place the . By following this process, Sales and Marketing are on the same page at all times – each of us knows what the other is doing. By placing campaigns in Dynamics CRM, Sales knows what is going on. Now when Sales receives a call from a prospect wanting more information about a particular offer they have the literature attached to the campaign – no guessing what to send. Marketing and Sales decide before the campaign is launched what is needed in order to execute a successful campaign. The other day I talked with one of our account executives; he told me that in the past Sales and Marketing didn’t communicate therefore neither knew what the other was doing. In the past he would be blind-sided when a prospect would call; as for Marketing, they didn’t know what message Sales was communicating.
Working with a CRM solution, in this case Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has helped Sales and Marketing at InterDyn Artis work as a team toward the same goals, making an efficient and productive team. As a marketing professional, I have heard from many organizations that this is an issue for them as well and they would like to learn how we brought our teams together.
If you would like to learn the process that brought our Sales and Marketing teams together please give Judy Van Der Linden a call at 704.321.3881. I have worked for InterDyn Artis for over 14 years and write this blog through my personal experience in working with our sales team as a marketing manager. located in Charlotte, NC.
