If you are a marketing leader, chances are you have had many (many, many) conversations with your sales leaders and sales team about marketing assets. 😅
As a marketing leader, you should be engaging (and driving) meaningful discussions with these sales team members to ensure the marketing assets you are creating effectively support the sales process and also work to drive awareness, demand, and interest in the business.
So what does the marketing leader need to understand and discuss with the sales team (and as the RDT!!) in order to create and optimize their marketing assets?
Here are key topics that should be discussed between the marketing leader and the sales team:
1. Marketing needs to understand the sales process and sales goals, and work with the sales team to understand where marketing motions should/can happen and when sales motions need to happen.
Sometimes, marketing gets “sales-light” motions and there needs to be clear conversations on what does and what does not fall into marketing. This also shines a light into areas where content and collateral can support sales motions more/differently.
The marketing leader should align with the sales team to understand their specific goals, targets, and priorities. This includes understanding the target audience, key markets, and sales cycle stages.
2. Marketing needs to understand customer pain points and insight, through discussions with sales and customers in order to iterate and massage the messaging if it’s not quite right.
If marketing knows the issues customers face, we can create key messaging and understand and leverage our position in the market more effectively. Engage in discussions to gather insights into customer needs, pain points, and frequently asked questions encountered during sales interactions. Understanding customer perspectives helps in crafting relevant and impactful marketing messages.
3. Marketing needs to solicit feedback on current marketing materials so there can be discussions on what are easy grabs for sales to use, what are pieces sales can take and lightly edit, and what needs to be developed.
Solicit feedback from the sales team regarding the effectiveness of current marketing materials, such as brochures, presentations, case studies, and product sheets. Identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement based on their experiences in the field. This also allows marketing and sales to see what needs created (see point #4!)
4. Marketing should audit the map of content channels and see where gaps exist.
Mapping the CJM or customer journey map means understanding all the ways someone gets to your brand, what kind of information they may enter with, what they know before they get to you, and so much more. This is a new way to think of a customer journey/marketing funnel (spoiler, it’s not a funnel anymore!)
Discuss with the sales team to identify any gaps or deficiencies in the existing marketing collateral that hinder their sales efforts. Determine the type of content or materials that would better support sales conversations and address customer concerns. Understand the specific sales enablement needs of the sales team, including the type of content, tools, and resources required to engage prospects and move them through the sales funnel effectively.
These are four topics to keep top of mind as you, marketing leader, have productive and aligned conversation with your sales leaders.
A marketing leader needs to engage with the sales team in meaningful discussions to ensure the creation of the right marketing materials that effectively support the sales process. By engaging in regular discussions with the sales team and actively seeking their input and collaboration, the marketing leader can ensure the development of marketing materials that resonate with customers, address their pain points, and support the sales team in achieving their objectives effectively.