By Nikki Dawson, Head of EMEA Marketing at Highspot

When it comes to creating and turning leads into sales for a business, both the marketing and sales team are critical. Both functions think differently but are equally important in driving corporate growth and revenue.

Marketers contend to supply enough content and collateral to work with for the sales team. While the sales team, on the other hand, argues that marketers fail to supply them with sufficient materials to engage customers meaningfully.

Because of this avoidable game of undervaluing one another’s contributions, many organisations tend to miss out on income and growth opportunities from a lack of integration between these two teams.

To fully thrive in today’s competitive market, businesses must emphasise the significance of combining sales and marketing and eliminate the absence of an alignment system.

Why does working in silos hinder ROI?

No longer can sales and marketing teams work in silos. This is a barrier that needs to be taken down between the two. ‘Teamwork makes the dream work’, right? So why then do so many sales and marketing teams fail to make the dream a reality?

Producing up-to-date content is critical for the marketing team because of its ability to persuade prospects to move on to the next step of their buyer’s journey. In the absence of a collaborative approach or mechanism to assist, often the sales team are unable to access or locate the latest information when they need it, whilst marketing continues to create more content.

Without a clear content management strategy in place, marketing will chaotically continue to churn out more content, inundating the sales team, which in turn will prevent them from finding and managing the relevant content required to effectively engage prospects.

Businesses have been struggling to align the two in terms of personnel, data, and software like Sharepoint, to maximise operational efficiency – a problem that remains all too common.

This disparity between the perceived importance of collaboration and how businesses actually collaborate in an organised manner needs to be addressed. Communication and collaboration are essential for success in today’s competitive climate. And if neither party is committed to shared success – it’s a recipe for failure.

Because they are two sides of the same coin, this symbiotic relationship necessitates clear and frequent communication, mutual support, and visibility. They must work in unison with one another to understand what’s working and what’s not. This is where a sales enablement platform can help.

The rewards of working in collaboration

Effective collaboration helps sales and marketing to work cooperatively to convert quality leads. This consequently provides clearer visibility when forecasting potential income, increasing the sales teams’ chances of increased performance and producing better results. all round.

Marketers fully understand how critical it is to target prospects with the relevant messaging across the correct channels, such as digital to generate content that expedites sales.

Since it’s easier for marketers to measure ROI on digital channels, it’s usually much harder to track the ROI on content that goes via sales, yet the sales team is the most important channel to focus on – this is how you reach customers.

Marketers are now able to have a seat at the revenue table, be part of the conversations around ROI, have their say, and know what the ROI is on the content they’re producing.

This means that marketers are no longer in the dark when it comes to what’s working and what isn’t. They’re creating content with purpose and know where to target customers depending on where they are on the buyer journey.

What role does sales enablement play in all of this?

In marketing circles, the term ‘sales enablement’ may be unfamiliar, given that it is titled in a way that implies it is a tool primarily for sales. Marketers do not see it as a tool that has numerous benefits for both sales and marketing teams.

Through AI-powered analytics, sales enablement platforms such as Highspot can provide data-driven insights for marketing and sales teams to optimise their assets and tactics which in turn help to generate more revenue.

According to Sirius Decisions, 60%–70% of B2B content created goes unused, but with a sales enablement platform, teams can collaborate and work in tandem when developing and analysing content and collateral. This creates a single source of truth that allows internal content to be found quickly.

During the sales pitch process, sales enablement tools also provide marketing asset recommendations to sales teams that are likely to increase the chances of success. Based on the platform’s shared analytics, these recommendations benefit both sales and marketing teams by connecting sellers to the most relevant content. This provides real-time visibility into customer engagement, measuring its extra capabilities by mapping against bottom-line results.

In summary

Without sales enablement, companies often do not have a centralised repository for all marketing content, creating issues with consistency.

The sales team is frequently left searching for the right materials in order to effectively engage with the customer. Consequently, leaving them with unsuitable and inaccurate content that negatively impacts performance, and ultimately your revenue.

Conversely, there is no question that when sales and marketing work successfully together, they operate as a unified and coordinated well-oiled machine.

Sales enablement breaks the silo between the sales and marketing teams, bringing them closer together. This alignment creates a level playing field for both teams to collaborate more effectively and deliver ROI.