H.I.T.S - The disconnect between sales and marketing

A high tech firm was looking to prioritize their plans for the coming year. The full senior management team was in attendance. In reviewing their efforts the head of marketing noted that they were averaging 12,000 hits per month on the company web site.

Unfamiliar with the term, the CFO asked what ‘hits’ were and before the marketing executive could answer the sales executive said. “It’s an acronym and stands for ‘How Idiots Track Success’ ”.

The story above is designed to highlight a point that I have read and heard about many times over, and that is apparent disconnect that seems rampant between sales and marketing but as a marketer, what if your sales teams raved about the quality of leads from marketing? What if marketing was pivotal in helping sales make their numbers? And What if sales and marketing could work effectively together - effectively.


Yet there really does NOT need to be a misaligned sales and marketing organisation. Let’s start by looking at what I have seen sales and marketing want. These are what I have seen and I am sure readers can add their own points of view:

I’m a sales guy and this is what I want from marketing

— Good qualification processes that are agreed with me, so I get high quality leads and not just excessive quantity.
— Consistent pipeline feed that allows me to manage my time effectively and meet or exceed my quota.
— Process which mirrors our standardised sales methodology. E.g. strategic/consultative sales methodology.
— Elimination of duplicate leads that have already been contacted.
— Elimination of double entry so lead data in our CRM system is complete and accurate when passed over to me.
— Help with managing those leads that are not yet that far along in the buy cycle but are nonetheless possible opportunities later down the line.
— Deeper mining within an account (‘triangulation’) to identify the pains and politics of the wider decision making unit.
— Marketing materials and assets that can support my prospects during all stages of their learning , scoping and selection processes
— Helping me with more accurate forecasting (dependent on better and more accurate understanding and profiling of opportunities and their propensity to purchase)


I am the marketer and this is what I want

— Demonstrable marketing ROI so I can prove and improve the results of my programs
— Multi modal closed loop integrated campaigns across all learning, scoping and selection stages that a prospect will go through e.g. blogs, podcasts, newsletters, micro-sites and proposition landing pages, telemarketing, events, direct mail etc.
— Better agreement with sales of what constitutes a lead, what constitutes and opportunity and all in between
— Agreed measurement metrics that bridge the gap across marketing and sales so we are all on 'the same page'
— Lead nurturing systems that ensure marketing dollars are not wasted and leads are followed up, diarised or qualified in or out, so we can continue to refine our processes
— In an environment where prospects are ‘pulling’ information, a more unified view of prospect touch points so we can better segment according to behavioural activity e.g. who downloaded the whitepaper, who clicked on the email link as well as outbound calling notes.
— Ideally, unification of touch points or ‘moments of truth’ in a single system of record like a CRM system so we can analyse behavioural action make real time decisions based on the derived intelligence of the those behaviours
— Marketing process workflow services and best practice to support all aspects of prospect and customer activity. E.g. An event registration. Outbound emails, registrations, reminders, pre event outbound calling, post event follow ups etc.
— Reusable campaigns across international markets that have the capability to be localised yet are consistent with overall brand.

The most common area of contention seems to be where sales and marketing meet. That is, around the sales pipeline and demand generation activities. The way to resolve such problems is to establish a common understanding of business objectives and establishment of an agreed vocabulary of what constitutes a good lead and an opportunity. Just as importantly, there need to be clear definitions of what does NOT constitute an opportunity. There need to be processes for lead nurturing and opportunity management as well as clearly defined processes of how leads are passed over from marketing to sales and how leads are followed up and reported on through the whole sales cycle, so that there is transparency for all. If you believe in the term ‘what you measure is what you get’ then clearly the measurement metrics also need to be considered. So ‘hits’ in themselves might not be wholly appropriate and the organisation should ask themselves what high level SMART (Specific, Measurable, Accurate, Relevant and Timely) metrics would be appropriate for analysis of progress against plan.

There really is no need to have a misaligned sales and marketing operation in any organisation and if that is the case then senior management and teams need to come together with a blank canvas and rather than naming and shaming, work together to build out an infrastructure that makes sense for the organisation and its raison d’être.