what does sales need and want from marketing?...• the buyer’s self-directed knowledge gathering...

While sales and marketing alignment shows signs of improvement, emerging

challenges require a new focus and even better collaborative approaches to

deliver an optimal buyer experience.

What Does Sales Need and Want from Marketing? Televerde Survey 2017

2 What Does Sales Need and Want from Marketing?

Contents

Executive Summary.............................................................................................................................................3

Key Takeaways.........................................................................................................................................................3

Survey Methodology...........................................................................................................................................4

Key Findings of What Does Sales Need & Want from Marketing...................................5

Inching towards greater alignment.............................................................................................................................................5

Room for improvement .....................................................................................................................................................................6

Listen up Marketing. Sales is telling you what it needs.................................................................................................7

New obstacles to sales/marketing alignment....................................................................................................................9

Taking Action to Improve Sales and Marketing Alignment.................................................10

About Televerde....................................................................................................................................................12


Executive Summary

Marketers, the business world’s storytellers, provide Sales with narratives, case studies, value propositions and a host of

tools to drive leads and revenue. Alignment between Marketing and Sales priorities can make the difference between

a healthy pipeline of sales opportunities and a company that misses its revenue goals. An absence of sales and

marketing alignment hinders true partnerships for both product and service providers in the high-tech arena.

How does Sales view Marketing? Do sales professionals feel Sales and Marketing are in sync? Televerde asked sales

executives to share their opinions in its recent What Does Sales Need & Want From Marketing survey. This survey was

conducted to gain actionable insight directly from Sales to improve sales and marketing alignment.

Organizations with tightly aligned sales and marketing functions enjoyed 36% higher customer retention rates

and 38% higher sales win rates.

-MarketingProfs

“Key Takeaways

Survey results show the gap between Sales and Marketing narrowing (finally). The state of sales and marketing alignment

isn’t as bleak as it was 5 years ago. A majority of sales professionals think that Sales and Marketing are aligned at their

companies, and more than 77% characterize the leads they receive from Marketing as “good” to “excellent.”

Overall, sales and marketing professionals meet with their counterparts regularly, with the top marketing and sales

leaders meeting monthly or more often. However, it appears that the sales pipeline is not consistently on the agenda

at these meetings. This could be the reason that, while 62% of sales professionals think that Sales is aligned with

Marketing, one-fifth of respondents don’t think they’re aligned at all.

The survey sheds light on reasons Sales thinks deals are won (best product, easy to work with, and best ROI) and

reasons they are lost (price, value not conveyed, and wrong solution). The survey results highlight areas Sales would

like Marketing to focus on to better influence sales outcomes.

New, intensifying obstacles to sales and marketing alignment indicate the two disciplines need to recommit to

alignment and adopt new strategies to drive sales success. Understanding what Sales values most will help marketers

focus their efforts, enabling them to develop strategies and deliver tactics that help Sales close more deals.

Account-Based Management tactics and Service Level Agreements are two approaches that enable Sales and

Marketing to forge tighter bonds and foster ever closer alignment to deliver solutions that buyers want.

”


The survey’s key questions included:

1. Why do you most often win deals? Why do you most often lose deals?

2. How often do you meet with your marketing counterpart? Do you regularly discuss the sales pipeline with marketing? How often do the CMO/VP Marketing and CSO/VP Sales meet to discuss performance and strategy?

3. How would you describe your sales organization’s relationship with Marketing?

4. How well does Marketing understand the sales challenges you face?

5. How well does Marketing understand the product set you sell?

6. What tools/assets/activities from Marketing are most useful to Sales?

7. In general, how well does Marketing deliver on the tools/assets/activities promised?

8. How would you characterize the quality of the leads generated through marketing activities?

9. What % of new leads are driven by Marketing initiated activity vs. Sales initiated activity?

$5M or less

$5M-$25M

$26M-$50M

$51M-$249M

$250M-$999M

$1B or more

25%14%

25%

12% 10%

17%

Survey Methodology

Televerde fielded the What Does Sales Need & Want From Marketing survey in Q1 2017. More than 200 sales

leaders who sell B2B products or services were queried, with 62% holding the Sales Director/Manager or CSO/VP

Sales title. Company size varied with 25% of respondents working for companies with revenues of $1B or more.


Key Findings of What Does Sales Need & Want from Marketing

Inching towards greater alignment

Grievances about lack of alignment between Sales and Marketing have long been endemic throughout the industry. In

reality, alignment has improved:

A majority (62%) of sales professionals feel Sales and Marketing are aligned at their companies, with 18% declaring

they are very aligned.

When asked “How would you characterize the quality of the leads generated through marketing activities?”, 77 percent of

respondents said the leads are “good” to “excellent.” Furthermore, sales professionals identify that more than a third of new

leads are driven by Marketing initiated activity which contradicts the notion that Sales and Marketing are worlds apart.

62% of sales professionals feel

Sales and Marketing are aligned at their

companies.

of respondents said the quality of the leads

generated through Marketing are

“good” to “excellent.” 18% of sales professionals feel

Sales and Marketing are very aligned at

their companies.

Sales Marketing

77%Aligned

VeryAligned


Room for improvement

What is impeding closer alignment? When asked “What are the biggest challenges in aligning Sales with Marketing?”

The four top responses (out of 10 choices) were the lack of regular communication (37%), differences in the way

sales and marketing successes are measured (33%), the lead qualification process (30%), and differences in what’s

important (27%).

37% 33% 30% 27%

Lack of regular

communication

Di�erences in the way sales and marketing successes are

measured

The lead quali�cation

process

Di�erences in what’s

important

“I’ve worked in the tech industry in various roles and with a variety of companies for almost 30 years. It’s only been

within the last five years or so that I’ve seen a demonstrable improvement in the quality and quantity of leads delivered

by Marketing that have moved successfully through the funnel to close. Perhaps it is partly due to evolving marketing technologies, but I can see that sales and

marketing alignment contributes greatly to sales success.”

-Senior VP of Sales, cybersecurity company

“

”


Communication between the two disciplines could be better. While close to 40% meet weekly or daily, 44% of sales

professionals meet with their marketing counterparts monthly at best.

When asked “How well does Marketing understand the product you sell?” Sales thinks Marketing does well, with more

than 90% of respondents believing that Marketing has a reasonable understanding of the product set. Ideally, Sales

and Marketing should be in tandem at 100% understanding.

When asked “How would you describe your sales organization’s relationship with Marketing,” 24% say it’s a “great

partnership” and 33% say there’s “healthy debate and discussion,” but, distressingly, 38% say it’s “hit or miss.”

Marketers “usually” (45%) or “sometimes” (36%) deliver on the tools/assets/activities promised. This isn’t good

enough. Marketers need to “always” deliver or not promise on what they cannot, or choose not to, deliver. This is an

area where Service Level Agreements can be a tremendous asset. When Marketing and Sales need to come to an

agreement together about optimal tools/assets/activities, what is ultimately promised can be delivered and yields

desired results.

Listen up Marketing. Sales is telling you what it needs

Several survey questions elicited responses that Marketers should use as a guide to improve their strategies and deliverables.

Why do you most often win deals?

Best product

Best at knowing customer needs

Easy to work with

Best ROI

43%

38%

37%

35%

Why do you most often lose deals?

Not price competitive

Value not conveyed

Solution set not a match

52%

47%

35%

Sales identifies why they win/lose deals:


Taken together, the responses to these two questions provide strong direction for what can Marketing do to get savvier

about customer needs, improve how value is conveyed, and demonstrate ROI. Insights such as these will yield, in the

future, better answers to questions like “How well does Marketing understand the sales challenges that you face?” and

“How well does Marketing understand the product set you sell?”

On the tactics front, the survey clearly lays out the marketing tools/assets/activities Sales finds most useful. Prompted

to choose “all that apply,” respondents chose as shown in the graph below:

The survey revealed other insights when respondents answered the question “What can Marketing do to help you

win more deals?” It’s not surprising Sales wants “more qualified leads” because that will always be the case. However,

Marketing should note that Sales would like “better messaging”, “strong participation in industry and influencer events”,

and a “better website.” Again, Service Level Agreements will lead to more constructive conversations about the marketing

pipeline and the tactics and activities Marketing delivers to Sales.

0%

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What tools/assets/activities from Marketing are most useful to Sales?(Choose up to 3)


New obstacles to sales/marketing alignment

While results of What Does Sales Need & Want from Marketing are more promising than similar surveys, the charge

to drive closer alignment has never been more important. New challenges to the marketing/sales/buyer journey are

threatening to wipe out any gains we’ve made in the last five years. The top challenges include:

• Buyers and prospects have more access to information than ever before, including opinions of industry leaders.

Buyers engage with products and services when they want to and from an increasing number of channels of

their choice. Consistent alignment on messaging and engagement needs to be more seamless than ever as the

salesperson may touch the buyer in different ways throughout the buyer’s journey.

• With more access to information, buyer expectations intensify as they weave through a buyer’s journey. Sales must

deliver more unique insights and know the customer’s challenges early on to add value and become a trusted

solutions advisor.

• The buyer’s self-directed knowledge gathering pushes interaction with Sales further down the funnel. Sales has to rely

on Marketing to get the right messaging and marketing materials to the buyer, particularly in the early discovery stages.

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What can Marketing do to help you win more deals?(Choose up to 5)


• Social channels are growing and rapidly evolving as an information source. Marketing and Sales need to evolve

quickly to adapt to how information is being conveyed and received.

• Account-Based Marketing has the ability to drive exceptional alignment with Sales and Marketing. Both groups

need to not only set and attend meetings to discuss accounts, but also align on strategy and tactics.

Taking Action to Improve Sales and Marketing Alignment

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategies enable marketers to deliver increased value. ABM requires that Sales and

Marketing take a joint, focused approach, with collaboration and communication centering on deep penetration into

a set of selected accounts. This strategic approach requires collaborative resources from both groups, but ensures that

targeted accounts are a match between solution and need.

Addressing the needs and wants of Sales is critical to nurturing and growing a customer pipeline. Collaboration between

Marketing and Sales at all levels of responsibility and integration of strategies and tactics along the buyer journey is

critical. Service Level Agreements (SLA), a contract between Sales and Marketing, ensures clearly articulated definitions

of processes and measurement to ensure joint goals and objectives. SLAs around criteria for lead qualification and

defining a ‘source of truth’ for data insights and reporting will smooth the alignment process.


To ensure collaboration, a regular cadence of communications and meetings for all Sales and Marketing needs to

happen. Perhaps top leaders will meet more often, but to align the focus, messaging, materials and approach between

both teams, it’s important for all members of both teams to meet on a regular basis as well. Together they need to

address the state of the pipeline and key accounts, as well as initiatives completed, in progress or needed.

Sales and Marketing can improve alignment by taking key steps within the relationship:

1. Recognize that Sales and Marketing have distinct differences in mindsets and styles, so be sure to adopt a common language and mutual goals.

2. Set and define SLAs for inquiry, lead and pipeline stages.

3. Establish a regular communication cadence. Best practice is for top sales and marketing leaders to meet every two weeks to discuss performance, pipeline and strategy.

4. Establish and agree on personas, target audiences and the buyer’s journey. It’s important that you speak the same language for reaching the right customers.

5. Seek out customer feedback and industry insight. Share, analyze and adjust your strategies together to always get better.

6. Establish a single data source of truth for measurement that lays the base for conversion metrics and joint goals.

7. Invest in marketing automation and sales enablement tools that ensure consistent communication and a knowledge hub of accessible materials for advancing the sale.

“The branding, website content and campaigns Marketing produces must be coordinated

with the customer-specific solution messaging Sales uses to meet the needs of B2B buyers.”

-Jim Thorburn, Chief Sales Officer, Televerde

“”

© 2017 Televerde. All rights reserved.

To reach your audience more effectively, visit televerde.com

or call us at 888-787-2829.

About Televerde

Televerde is a global demand generation company that provides sales and marketing solutions designed to

acquire new business and accelerate revenue. We serve as strategic partners for our clients, dedicated to delivering

exceptional results from the moment leads enter the sales pipeline to close. By offering proven solutions in the areas

of marketing technology services, strategic engagement planning, data intelligence, demand generation, teleservices

and inside sales, Televerde has helped a wide range of large and mid-sized companies around the world generate

over $8 billion in revenue.

what does sales need and want from marketing?...• the buyer’s self-directed knowledge gathering...

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