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The ever-complicated, often regressive, sibling relationship between sales and marketing would be comical if it weren’t so frustrating. These two departments depend on each other to be successful, yet often don’t take the time to offer ideas and support on sales marketing needs.

But think about it for a second. As a functioning, deal closing, money-making department, sales is almost entirely dependent on the work of marketing. Without events, email campaigns, high-value documents, and social media networking, sales would not have the leads necessary to convert customers and increase ROI.

Take the time to ask your sales department, What do you need from us? This will open the communication floodgates and present deeper ideas then leads, leads, leads. With this in mind, here are six things all sales departments need from marketing:

1. Sales qualified leads (SQLs): Lead scoring assign points to leads based on their interactions with your website email content, event, etc. Include sales when setting up these profiles – this eliminates confusion and frustration and clarifies company-wide definitions of hot leads.
2. Real-time alerts for hot leads: Website visitor tracking software alerts sales reps when active, qualified leads on your website. This way, sales can reach out by phone immediately – if the lead is on the site, he or she is probably at their desk and available.
3. Mind-blowing content: In this case, mind-blowing means relevant and desired. Make sure you’re segmenting your lead database and customizing emails based on industry, title, location, etc. Do not blast one vague email to all leads. They’ll see right through it.
4. Brand awareness: Take the time to educate sales reps about your branding, marketing mission, and product details. Sales reps are your company’s spokespeople, so be available to answer their questions and update them on all marketing changes.
5. Access to the marketing calendar: Sales reps don’t like surprises. Give reps access to accurate and updated marketing calendars, so they know about all upcoming email campaigns, events, blog post topics, etc. This information will tailor and guide conversations with leads.
6. Collaboration: Don’t get stuck with the attitude that marketing’s job is to dominate sales. It’s not – and that attitude will take you down. Involve sales in marketing brainstorming sessions for content, lead scoring, emails, etc. After all, they spend all day interacting with potential customers and know what they’re looking for to close a deal.