Marketing and sales departments should work hand in hand. After all, they both ultimately have the same goals - to bring in new business and grow their brand. But in practice, this isn't always the case.

It can be all too easy for each team to end up in its own bubble, siloed away from their colleagues. This can cause a range of problems due to a lack of alignment on goals and strategy. This is a challenge that's especially prevalent for B2B firms that have longer buying cycles, and therefore more opportunities for leads to slip away during the handoff between marketing and sales.

As such, if your firm is struggling to achieve its expected new customer growth, tackling this disconnect is one of the very best things you can do. Here's why you need sales and marketing alignment and some key pointers to help close the gap.

The problems caused by a lack of alignment

Sales and marketing teams that aren't working well together can result in a number of issues when trying to get new customers through the door. Here are some of the key problems you should be watching out for that may indicate a misalignment between departments.

Inaccurate buyer personas

Disagreement between teams on what their ideal buyers look like is a common source of friction in the process. If the materials marketers produce don't align with the needs sales professionals hear directly from prospects, this will lead to much wasted effort targeting the wrong people with the wrong messaging. Indeed, the Content Marketing Institute reports that 57 per cent of marketers say creating the right content for their audience is a major challenge.

Poor leads

A lack of understanding of buyers can also result in marketing teams focusing on the wrong areas or prospects when targeting their efforts, and this can create issues further down the pipeline. For instance, HubSpot notes that only nine per cent of salespeople say leads they receive from marketing are very high quality.

A fragmented customer journey

Ensuring the customer journey is as seamless as possible is critical in delivering conversions and creating a strong ROI for sales and marketing activities. When there is misalignment between the two, this creates more friction and increases the chances potential buyers will look elsewhere before converting.

Missing out on revenue

Ultimately, issues like these lead to less revenue. Indeed, HubSpot notes that more than half of sales professionals (52 per cent) say this is the biggest impact of misalignment between themselves and marketers.

What benefits can B2B firms see from closer collaboration?

If firms can solve these issues and get sales and marketing teams working in harmony, the benefits can be wide-ranging. Among the key advantages firms can enjoy as a result of improved marketing and sales alignment are:

• A clearer path down the sales funnel
• Creation of more relevant, tailored sales materials and other assets
• Improved understanding of customers
• A seamless experience at every stage of the process
• Clearer ROI for marketing activities

Key tips for encouraging sales and marketing alignment

So how can misalignment issues be solved in order to reap these benefits? While there are a range of steps that can be taken, ultimately, it comes down to better communication between the two teams. For marketing leaders, this will mean close collaboration with their counterparts in sales to work on the below steps.

• Work together on buyer personas - Making the creation of buyer personas a joint task ensures that both teams can use their insights to develop a more rounded picture of ideal customers.
• Create shared goals - Set up objectives that both teams can work towards together, using agreed-on KPIs that treat the entire sales and marketing funnel as a shared process.
• Have teams educate each other - A better understanding within sales of what marketers do - and vice-versa - helps ensure that marketing teams are given better direction on what sales teams want from leads, while sales can better appreciate the trends that drive marketing choices.
• Hold regular check-ins - Frequent catch-ups to evaluate what is and is not working are essential in identifying any new opportunities, as well as better understand why and where any lost leads slipped out of the funnel.