What is Smarketing and Why It Is Critical to Revenue Growth

Sales and marketing teams have long been known to butt heads. It’s like the tale of two children fighting for their parents love. Sales likes to think that the marketing team is that free spirit, artsy fartsy kid who gets away with whatever he wants because he’s a good academic. Marketing thinks that sales is the incompetent lazy kid that sits around playing XBox and scarfing nachos over his Bluetooth headset. Meanwhile the boss wonders why his two problem children just can’t get along.

And who touched the thermostat?

Smarketing is all about bringing the family together to work toward the same goal before the situation turns full Cain and Abel. Sales and marketing are both on the same team – the team that is responsible for growing revenues. Marketing attracts new leads and nurtures them while the sales team develops a one-on-one relationship with the prospect, figures out their needs and then closes the sale at the right time. So it makes absolute sense for marketing and sales to work together instead of bickering over who needs to deliver what.

So How do We Align Sales and Marketing?

It’s important that both teams are aligned around the same revenue goals based on your business personas. Not only that, but they should be able to see and study each other’s progress so that roles are defined clearly and improvements can be made. It could even go as far as providing compensation based on each other’s goals.

No more bare-chested knife fights in the lunchroom might be a good start.

Aligning Around Personas

To get everyone on the same page you’ll need to make sure that everyone has a clear definition of who your personas are. From there, each team will need to provide feedback and educate each other about new details on these personas as they develop over time based on interaction experiences with those people. Sales and marketing should meet together regularly to discuss successes and challenges.

For small businesses, the sales and marketing teams may initially involve only one or two people. However, as revenues grow and your sales and marketing teams scale along with it, you’ll begin to identify key people within those teams that can provide leadership roles that will help carry smarketing across a larger company.