Building relationships between marketing and sales teams is crucial for organizational success. We’ve gathered twelve insightful strategies from CEOs, founders, and other industry leaders to help you foster this essential collaboration. From establishing regular cross-functional meetings to ensuring sales understands marketing capabilities, discover the top strategies these professionals have successfully implemented in their organizations.
- Establish Regular Cross-Functional Meetings
- Implement a Joint Goal Setting Approach
- Foster a Two-Way Feedback Loop
- Initiate Joint Campaign Planning Sessions
- Create a Shared Content Calendar
- Engage in Social Activities Outside Work
- Set Clear Goals and Objectives
- Promote Collaboration and Cross-Training
- Establish Regular Communication via Chat Platform
- Divide Teams Up by Project
- Consolidate Forces to Attract New Clients
- Ensure Sales Understands Marketing Capabilities
Establish Regular Cross-Functional Meetings
One effective strategy implemented is to establish regular cross-functional meetings. These meetings bring together representatives from both departments to discuss goals, share insights, and align strategies.
By creating a collaborative forum, silos are broken down, open communication is promoted, and both teams have a clear understanding of each other’s challenges and priorities. This approach has not only improved coordination but has also led to more effective lead-generation and conversion efforts. Regular interaction and shared objectives strengthen the synergy between marketing and sales, ultimately driving business growth.
Darryl Stevens, CEO, Digitech Web Design
Implement a Joint Goal Setting Approach
A proven strategy I’ve employed to build relationships between marketing and sales teams is the “Joint Goal Setting” approach. By establishing shared targets and KPIs, both teams become mutually accountable for the end result, fostering collaboration.
We set regular joint meetings up to track progress, discuss challenges, and brainstorm solutions. This collective ownership of outcomes bridges communication gaps, aligns priorities, and reinforces the understanding that both teams are essential cogs in the same revenue-generating machine.
Carlos Trillo, Founder and CEO, Evinex
Foster a Two-Way Feedback Loop
We’ve instituted a monthly meeting between our sales and marketing teams to foster a two-way feedback loop. Specifically, we empower the sales team to provide us with their insights. Since their primary focus is often on commission, questions about the ideal customer profile or lead quality help build trust with the marketing team.
This mutual trust also allows the marketing team to appropriately address any delays the sales team might have in contacting leads, an issue we often encounter. Overall, these meetings have been instrumental in aligning both teams and improving our business operations.
Chris Stott, Director, Seven Marketing
Initiate Joint Campaign Planning Sessions
Collaborative campaign planning sessions involving members from both the marketing and sales teams can be highly effective. These sessions allow for the alignment of marketing strategies with sales needs and priorities.
By collectively brainstorming campaign ideas, content, and messaging, we ensure that marketing materials and efforts directly support the sales team’s objectives. This approach also encourages a sense of ownership and accountability for the success of marketing campaigns among the sales team.
Adil Advani, Digital PR and Marketing Director, AnySoftwareTools
Create a Shared Content Calendar
Building strong relationships between the marketing and sales teams is essential for business success and alignment. An effective strategy has been implemented by creating a shared content calendar.
Developing a collaborative content calendar to which both teams contribute and rely on ensures that marketing materials are closely aligned with the sales team’s needs and objectives. This calendar includes content for various sales funnel and consumer journey stages.
Regular meetings, such as weekly or biweekly sync-ups, facilitate the review and upkeep of the content calendar. These meetings promote open communication by allowing both teams to share insights, feedback, and forthcoming priorities. Marketing gains a deeper understanding of the content that directly supports sales efforts, and sales can provide real-time feedback on what consumers find engaging.
This shared content schedule improves teamwork, efficiency, and income development.
Jessica Shee, Senior Tech Editor and Marketing Content Manager, iBoysoft
Engage in Social Activities Outside Work
One strategy I have used to build relationships between the two teams is engaging them in occasional social activities outside of work hours. These activities provide an environment where team members from both departments can mingle, get to know one another better, exchange ideas for increasing productivity, and build trust as peers. All of this leads towards improved relationships between them.
Rehana Aslam, Marketing Assistant, Instantly API
Set Clear Goals and Objectives
As a leader in an organization, it has been identified that one of the most important strategies to build a relationship between marketing and sales teams is to ensure both teams have clear goals and objectives. This includes setting up KPIs and deadlines for each team, which are accessible by everyone in the organization.
This allows the teams to be more aware of each other’s objectives and encourages collaboration between them. This strategy has been effective in the organization, contributing to stronger relations between the marketing and sales teams.
Ranee Zhang, VP of Growth, Airgram
Promote Collaboration and Cross-Training
Promoting collaboration and creating an open-door policy between the two teams has worked well for us. Sales and marketing are considered as two sides of the same coin, and they should feel free to approach each other without hesitation. Regular joint meetings, sharing of data, and collaborative planning are encouraged. This fosters a synergy where both teams understand and appreciate each other’s role and contributions, which ultimately improves our overall business performance.
Another effective strategy that has been implemented is cross-training. This approach enables both sales and marketing teams to understand each other’s roles in depth. For example, sessions are organized where marketing team members spend a day with the sales team, experiencing first-hand the challenges and opportunities they encounter. Likewise, sales team members get to see the creative process and strategic planning that the marketing team undertakes.
David Rubie-Todd, Co-Founder and Marketing Head, Sticker It
Establish Regular Communication via Chat Platform
The key to building strong relationships between marketing and sales teams is communication. To achieve this, organizations should work on establishing a regular communication rhythm, aiming to break down silos and foster team collaboration.
My organization implemented a common chat platform with optional video-conferencing capabilities where everyone from both teams could communicate about projects in real time. This enabled us to strengthen our working relationship since one team could share its progress while the other got immediate feedback to ensure it was meeting customer needs.
Overall, this has made a tremendous difference in allowing both departments to reveal their value and subscribe to success as a unified force!
Michael Alexis, CEO, teambuilding.com
Divide Teams Up by Project
Setting teams up by project, rather than function, can ensure that everyone is communicating and working collaboratively toward the task at hand. It helps prevent silos from forming where different areas of a project will end up disjointed because there’s no funnel or customer-journey flow from one area (marketing) to the next (sales).
Malena Gatti, Founder, Malena Gatti Marketing & Communications
Consolidate Forces to Attract New Clients
Building strong relationships between marketing and sales teams is crucial for ensuring alignment and driving business growth. One effective strategy we use in our AI startup is a consolidation of forces to attract new clients.
First and foremost, we establish a customer engagement strategy that both marketing and sales teams contribute to and agree upon. Then, we define the ideal customer profile (ICP), which can include factors such as demographics, engagement level, needs, requirements, pains, occupation, website behavior, etc. Then, we do A/B testing of some hypotheses that emerge after identifying the customer we are looking for.
Finally, it’s very important to hold regular meetings or workshops where marketing and sales teams come together to review and refine the lead scoring criteria. This collaborative process ensures that both teams have input and feel ownership over the system.
Myroslava Bovhyra, Account Manager, Elai
Ensure Sales Understands Marketing Capabilities
The gap between sales and service (marketing) is often a point of contention for clients. By making sure your sales team has a full understanding of the marketing team’s capabilities, you can help them make better decisions when recommending solutions.
For example, if a sales rep is aware that the marketing team can create compelling visuals or video for their campaigns, they can be much more confident in recommending solutions that will best meet the client’s needs.
Scott Orn, Chief Operating Officer, Kruze Consulting
