Better Together, Aligning Product, Marketing and Sales Goals
Aligning the marketing, sales, and product departments is crucial for business success in today’s competitive corporate environment, and can be tricky to handle. In order to create demand, close agreements, and produce a product that satisfies client expectations, all three divisions are essential. But far too frequently, these divisions work separately, which results in misaligned objectives, resource waste, and missed opportunities. In order to align marketing, sales, and product departments, it is important to first understand each department’s role in the ecosystemç Then, you can define a common lexicon, map out the customer experience, form a cross-functional team, use data to inform decisions, and celebrate accomplishments as a team.
But how, you might (and justifiably so) ask. Here’s a run down of the roadmap you can follow to bring all your departments to the same page and improve their communication, inspired by João Mendes-Roter’s article on Entrepreneur.
- Be sure to understand the role of each department
Taking it from the basics, how familiar are you with what other departments are working on? With all their unique functions, all three departments are part of a delicate ecosystem that is hopefully leading up to sales and generating revenue. Learning about what your co-workers are up to and how they are finding their way through any challenges can not only improve your communication within your company, but also with customers as well.
2. Create a shared vocabulary for all to use
All departments have their own specific set of terms that they regularly use, but are not necessarily familiar to people in other departments. It is essential to create a shared vocabulary you can all use and understand to avoid any misunderstandings that might come up.
3. Define your target customer and customer’s journey map
Understanding each other and creating common goals across departments starts from understanding your customers in the first place. Getting to know your audience and creating a clear customer’s journey map will allow you to understand your customers’ needs, behaviors and preferences. You can use this map to visualize which relations between customers and departments should be strengthened, reconsidered or worked on.
4. Establish a cross-functional team
One of the easiest, but also the most important, steps to aligning your goals across departments is creating a cross-functional team. This team should include representatives from marketing, sales, product development and customer success departments and provide them with a safe and open-minded space. In doing so, this team can discuss and come up with a unified business strategy that is well-communicated to all of the departments.
5. Track, measure and optimize for success
Any marketing and sales strategy is ever-evolving, therefore is in need of constant tracking and adjustments. Since there is no one size fits all, it is essential to keep track of your KPI’s, figure out what is working and which parts need to be adjusted for better results. However, optimizing campaigns should be an all-hands-in effort to avoid overlooking any details.
6. Celebrate together
After all the hard work you do, you definitely deserve to celebrate. Celebrating your success with all your team and departments will boost your morale, reinforce the teamwork culture you built and motivate your team for future projects.
Here is the article that inspired this blog post for you to read from Further for the best reading experience.