Many in the marketing automation industry frequently talk about “The Gap” between marketing and sales. What is this gap? Why is it such a big deal? Does marketing automation magically close it and align your Sales and Marketing teams?
For starters, marketing automation is primarily a platform for Marketers. MAPs are incredibly powerful, but the software is only as powerful as the people who run it. While marketing automation was created primarily for Marketers to use, it is designed to benefit both Marketing and Sales teams. Without the Sales team to interface with the leads being tracked and nurtured by Marketing, there would be no point to marketing automation. Marketers don’t track lead activity and create content for themselves, they do it to increase the number of quality leads coming into the pipeline. And who do you think is managing the pipeline and interacting directly with those leads? Sales.
Take a look at the lead stages graphic above. You’ll notice that it’s broken up into stages that are assigned to Marketing and progresses to stages assigned to Sales. The transition from a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) to a Sales Accepted Lead (SAL) is important, that is the literal component to The Gap we’re talking about.
To bridge “The Gap” it’s important that both your Marketing team and your Sales team accept a shared set of criteria for each lead stage. Tweet This!
This ensures that marketing only hands off leads to sales which are acknowledged by both parties to be ready for that transition. Establishing universally understood definitions helps bridge this component of The Gap and keeps the peace between Marketing and Sales.
Marketing Automation is for Marketers…and Salespeople.
In fact, I would argue that Sales teams are one of the primary forces driving the need for marketing automation. It’s typically the sales department that gets upset about low-quality leads or a lack of leads in general, which they often blame on Marketing for doing a poor job of generating and/or qualifying. Without marketing automation the marketing department has little defense because there would be no data or metrics to back-up their efforts. Worse than that, how can Marketing prove their value to the company if they cannot track their ROI? Are those snarky tweets from your newest intern growing your business or destroying your credibility? Marketing automation is often marketed to marketing teams who feel a need to prove their worth to a sales executive, or by marketing executives who want to monitor what is and isn’t positively affecting the bottom line.
But Sales is also prominently involved. Most marketing automation vendors (like us!) strongly encourage integrating their CRM system with their marketing automation software.
What a CRM system is to a sales team is what marketing automation is to a marketing team. Tweet This!
MAP with CRM. An Absolute Must.
CRM integration helps teams get the most out of their MAP. The integration allows salespeople to see important lead activity and flow gleaned from data compiled from the MAP. As the Lead progresses from Marketing Qualified to Sales Accepted, the Lead is handed off seamlessly with little need for communication other than an automated alert and a view in the lead record in CRM by Sales.
Arguing that marketing automation is designed exclusively for Marketing would be inaccurate in my opinion. Top performing users of marketing automation invest in the technology with a big-picture awareness. They see the value for their business and understand that it demands a high-level of cooperation between marketing and sales to realize its full potential.
The Gap is the lack of synergy between marketing and sales. Tweet This!
Bridging the Gap
Each day more and more companies see the value marketing automation provides. It Increases the efficiency of Marketing and Sales teams and has a measurable impact on the bottom line. Marketing automation software necessitates synergy between the two teams and through that it builds the bridge to The Gap. Marketing automation creates an alignment of your Sales and Marketing teams because it requires their cooperation to be the most effective. Do you need to move both teams into the same space? Not necessarily, but I predict that as marketing automation is adopted by more companies, skill sets for each team will become merged and the lines between each department will start to blur (The Revenue Team? Hmm…). Siloing off your sales and marketing teams will only increase the discrepancy in understanding that perpetuates The Gap. An integration between marketing automation and CRM systems merges both teams and breaks down the silos. Is your team ready to bridge the gap? Have you encountered problems trying to do so? Start a conversation in the comments below or let me know your thoughts on Twitter: @NetResults.
