Marketing and Sales: How to Work Better Together With CRM Solutions

Marketing and Sales heavily rely on each other to drive growth. Thus, it makes sense to cultivate a sense of collaboration and coordination between the two, given the competitive business landscape we are currently witnessing. But how can the two distinct departments better work in synergy? With the help of a robust CRM tool, Marketing and Sales can work better together, drive growth, and positively impact your business’s bottom line.

According to one of our surveys, only 33% of the respondents think they have “great alignment” within their sales and marketing departments.

According to our findings, more than one in five sales pros and marketers interviewed don’t think their Sales and Marketing teams are aligned.

As a result, sales and marketing teams should look into methods to simplify yet amplify their communication, goal-sharing strategies and settings, and touchpoints.

What we'll Cover:

Aligning Goals and Strategies

Shared goals and strategies are critical in achieving sales and marketing alignment. However, Sales and Marketing have different opinions on what it means to be aligned. In our 2024 State of CRM Report, we uncovered that the top technology integrated with CRM is marketing automation and email marketing (46%), and one-third say collecting customer feedback to align marketing and sales strategy is a key priority.

Although 20% of the sales professionals interviewed say they are perfectly aligned with marketing, only 2% of marketers say they experience perfect alignment.

The two have different opinions of what would improve the situation. Marketers feel the root cause of misalignment is not being incentivized by the same goals, while sales believe improved communication would do the trick.

One of the most significant advantages of leveraging CRM solutions for improved sales and marketing alignment is the ability to better align goals and strategies. With a single source of truth and a consolidated platform, both departments gain unprecedented visibility into customer data, insights, and behaviors. With this information, marketing can tailor impactful campaigns that match specific customer segments identified by sales in their direct interactions, while sales can better leverage marketing materials and content to nurture leads effectively.

Improved Lead Management

Another advantage of leveraging CRM solutions to improve Sales and Marketing alignment is the centralized database these solutions offer. Based on lead interaction and engagement history, marketing can understand which leads are more likely to convert. These leads can then be passed on to sales for further follow-ups. Overall, this workflow can reduce the time spent on unproductive leads, allowing Sales to focus on higher-value ones.

Marketing and Sales should collaborate to define what qualifies as a lead for marketers versus salespeople, the hand-off processes, and the lead scoring rule. Besides, sales should always be updated on what marketing content is being developed.

Conversely, Sales should provide Marketing with customer insights, as they interact directly with leads and customers. Sales feedback and insights can then be used to conduct more profound customer research.

Sales teams can also get involved in defining lead qualifications and reasoning why a lead has been qualified and assigned to them. The integrated platforms empower sales by highlighting and alerting them of prospect and customer key activities and marketing touchpoints via a convenient timeline view.

Plus, Marketing can create personalized experiences for prospects and customers by leveraging sales force automation data to segment prospects. Detailed segmentation enables the precise allocation of marketing efforts towards areas with the most significant revenue potential.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Data-driven insights help Marketing and Sales to further enhance their collaboration capabilities. With the help of a CRM solution, marketing teams can look into campaign success rates, measure lead qualification, and adjust their strategy based on real-time feedback received from sales.

On the other hand, a CRM helps sales professionals track customer interactions, histories, and preferences. In the long run, sales teams can deliver more personalized and targeted sales pitches aided by generative AI-infused CRM solutions.

Additionally, better Sales and Marketing alignment helps close deals faster, contributing to your company’s growth.

To leverage CRM data for enhanced alignment, Sales and Marketing teams should share common KPIs and short and long-term objectives to clearly understand where there are gaps in enablement.

Moreover, the technology that supports sales and marketing processes throughout the customer lifecycle is often siloed, limiting visibility, efficiency, and visibility across the customer journey.

Aligned companies are more adaptable to new technologies. 38% of aligned teams say they need even more potent sales and marketing technology to improve their performance.

Streamlined Customer Journey

Across customer journeys, sales and marketing have different touchpoints where they intersect. With the help of CRM solutions, all these touchpoints can be better managed and aligned for both departments. From the initial lead capture to post-sale support, CRM tools are great ways to ensure consistency in messaging and experiences.

CRMs also help marketing and sales ensure better data flow between teams, a common view of customers, and actionable sales intelligence.

Enhanced Communication

CRM solutions facilitate cross-departmental communication and collaboration. Our most recent 2024 State of CRM Report found that 60% of the respondents cite using CRM as a centralized communication hub for nurturing leads or customers as their top priority. A 360-degree view of customer accounts, interaction history, and notes from both sales and marketing will help both departments stay informed of each other’s efforts, customer feedback, and adequate marketing materials for each account.

Sales & Marketing: Working Better Together

When Marketing and Sales teams join forces, they are more efficient at closing deals. Improved communication, goal-setting, and integrated CRM and marketing automation solutions are the winning formula for ensuring sales and marketing success.

Want to know more about how technology enables marketing and sales teams to unite around a single revenue to increase productivity and company growth? Our Sales + Marketing: Better Together guide will help you explore why these teams lack alignment and strategies to overcome these bottlenecks.

Mihaela Chiurtu As a Marketing Content Writer, Mihaela is passionate about branding, content strategies, and customer interactions. When outside the office, Mihaela is a Netflix binge-watcher, skincare geek, and music lover.