Philip Kotler is known for writing that "the purpose of marketing is to
make sales superfluous." While few organizations have achieved this ideal,
this statement implies that sales and marketing go hand-in-hand.
Unfortunately, many times sales and marketing teams, especially when they
reside in different departments, fail to effectively integrate their approaches
to customer acquisition.
Historically, most organizations have separated their sales and marketing
teams into two departments. Marketing is usually assigned the task of
increasing product and brand awareness and generating sales leads. The sales
team is then tasked with closing the sales leads and cross-selling and up-selling
to existing customers.
Too often, the two departments that suffer from a lack of communication
develop incompatible goals and measures. This has led to the common conception
among sales and marketing professionals that they are "different" from one another.
But as most executives recognize, sales and marketing are attempting to
accomplish the same goal: to attract and retain profitable customers. An
integrated sales and marketing strategy allows what were formerly two disparate
departments to work together in achieving these goals. Management can define the
value proposition that the organization offers to different groups of customers
and the sales and marketing teams can work together to communicate this value
proposition to customers either through mass communication (marketing) or one-to-one
contact (sales).
Our team works with your organization's upper management to develop a sales
and marketing strategy that focuses on common goals and benchmarks. The strategies
that we develop are designed to create standard reports and measures that allow your
executive team to monitor the progress that sales and marketing are making both as
an integrated unit and in their department-specific assignments.
For more information on sales and marketing strategy or any of our
organizational transformation programs
please contact us or
submit an RFP.
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