Copper Staff
Contributors from members of the Copper team
Developing a winning sales and marketing strategy is hard in normal times, but it gets even more complicated when things are uncertain.
It’s no stretch to say things have been far from ordinary over the past two years. So, there’s only one thing to do: develop a resilient sales and marketing strategy that accounts for the unpredictable.
Easier said than done, right? Well, according to our 2022 Revenue Marketing Report, sales and marketing teams are pretty optimistic about their odds. In fact, 62% of sales and marketing leaders believe they’ll exceed their revenue goals for 2022, and 28% think they’ll at least hit them.
Optimistic or not, the question remains: How can you develop a resilient sales and marketing strategy to ensure you reach your goals this year? Here are 7 tips to get you started.
7 sales and marketing strategies to increase sales
Consider implementing these techniques when creating your sales and marketing strategy during uncertain times.
1. Focus on sales and marketing alignment
In our 2022 Revenue Marketing Report, we found that 60% of sales and marketing professionals don’t feel like they’re aligned. (This is up from 46% in 2021).
Plus, 65% of marketers believe that the sales department spends too much time on administrative tasks, and only 17% of salespeople believe their marketing team spends most of their time generating new leads for the pipeline.
It’s no secret, though, that the real magic happens when your departments work together, especially during moments of volatility. With things so up in the air, your teams need to work together and communicate with each other, instead of working at odds. In other words, your sales and marketing strategy needs to start with a heavy dose of sales and marketing alignment initiatives.
2. Streamline internal communication
Remote and hybrid working arrangements could be contributing to the sales and marketing misalignment since 63% of SMBs are either fully remote or hybrid, and remote teams are much more likely to struggle with alignment than in-house ones.
Still, the new remote norm within many sectors isn’t likely to change, so this calls for finding ways to streamline communication to avoid silos or misalignment, especially between B2B marketing and sales. And don’t be afraid to use technology to do it.
Productivity suites (like Google Workspace or Microsoft Teams), communication tools (like Google Meet, Zoom or Slack) and customer relationship management platforms are all essential components for communicating effectively in the remote working world and aligning sales and marketing activity.
3. Prioritize inbound marketing
Generating leads isn’t easy. That’s why it can be so tempting to focus on outbound marketing and cold leads. But calling and emailing strangers isn’t the best way to win hearts. Instead, prioritize inbound marketing to generate your own warm leads and first-party data. Some examples of inbound marketing include:
- Maintaining a company blog
- Creating informational content (like videos, ebooks, infographics, podcasts, etc.)
- Developing an engaging social media presence
- Email marketing to your existing list of customers and prospects
When you focus on inbound marketing, you’re setting your brand up for success, no matter what comes your way.
4. Focus on sales enablement
Sales enablement is all about making sure your sales team has the resources they need to turn a prospect into a sale. Too often, companies focus on generating leads and making that first contact, but there are very few resources devoted to taking that pitched lead to a closed deal.
The types of resources your sales team needs will depend on your business but it can be anything from explainer videos and blogs to help educate prospects, to a concrete plan for handling rejection. A sales program often requires software, like a CRM, to support sales tactics and automate, streamline, and track the entire sales process.
Take time to understand where your sales team needs help. Then, provide them with the tools they need to get the job done.
5. Set some concrete (and realistic) goals
Get really clear about what you want to achieve by setting some marketing and sales goals. When you define what you hope to accomplish in hard numbers, you’re not only setting your team up for success, but you’re also helping get everyone on the same page. This goes back to the sales and marketing alignment point.
When sales and marketing are aware of what the other is bringing to the table, it helps squelch any bubbling resentment. For instance, maybe one of your primary marketing goals this year is to increase brand awareness by 25%. If the sales team knows this, they can easily understand why the marketing mix devotes resources to activities that aren’t directly related to the bottom line.
When it comes to setting goals, it’s also important to be realistic. Take some time to do market research and understand your market, your customers, your process and your resources to make sure everything is well aligned. A lot has changed in the last couple of years, so it’s essential to take these changes into consideration when developing your goals. Understanding your target customer better will also help with customer loyalty once you close the deal.
6. Opt for customer relationship marketing
Customer relationship marketing is all about building meaningful connections with your prospects — developing enduring relationships built on trust and mutual interest. But this approach requires a paradigm shift. Your entire company will need to “ship” the relationship model.
For this approach to work, customers must be the heart of what you do, and your entire pipeline needs to reflect that. Zero in your marketing efforts on hyper-personalization, and focus your sales strategies around building trust versus closing deals quickly.
Prioritizing relationships as part of your sales and marketing strategy requires empathy, consistent messaging and sales and marketing alignment. But when you focus on building lasting relationships, you prioritize retention to help ensure that your customers will stick with you even when the going gets tough.
7. Hammer out your funnels and pipelines
Every successful sales and marketing strategy hinges on clear funnels and pipelines. This starts with making sure your marketing sales funnel is completely defined from top to bottom.
Without an established funnel, there’s no way to ensure all your leads and customers end up where you want them to end up. For example, what happens if a lead doesn’t close on the first call? Do you have a follow-up process in place? What about customers who haven’t bought in a while? Do you have a remarketing funnel established?
Take time to develop pipelines for every possible path your prospects and customers might take. This ensures no one slips through the cracks and that you’re not leaving any potential revenue on the table.
Creating a winning sales and marketing strategy
Creating a winning sales and marketing strategy doesn’t have to be super challenging. If you focus on internal communication, building relationships with your customers, and hammering out all the nitty-gritty details, you’ll be primed for whatever comes your way.
Keep in mind that using technology, like Copper CRM, can help simplify implementation of your strategy. Copper makes it easy to build relationships with your customers, streamline internal communication, automate tedious processes, and create custom pipelines.
Plus, we’re the only CRM recommended by Google Workspace. We integrate seamlessly with the Google tools you’re already using, so there’s no steep learning curve. Instead, you can focus all your energy on creating a resilient sales and marketing strategy.
