There’s often a misconception in the B2B space that marketing is secondary to sales. In reality, the two need to work hand in hand in order to fire up the lead gen engine. Azadeh Williams takes a look at ways in which sales and marketing can work together better to generate real, tangible results.

Complementary mindset

When you think of marketing as ‘secondary’ to sales, that’s where you start having problems. When you instil a culture of seeing the two as complementary, everyone’s mindset shifts towards being more collaborative. After all, there is a lot of dependency, especially in B2B, that marketing has on sales and vice versa. The whole idea of alignment is understanding what those key dependencies are. Then align roles and responsibilities so everybody has a clear-eyed view of what the future looks like.

Common language

One of the first ways to align is by creating a common language. As an example, what a ‘lead’ means for your marketing department (MQL or marketing qualified lead), may be completely different to what it means to the sales team (SQL). A marketing team could say, ‘I’ve generated 27,000 MQLs’, but zero of these have turned into revenue. That’s a terrible disconnection. A common framework or a common language and clear expectations is a starting point for any of this to create alignment.

Common KPIs

Another way to align is to look at performance metrics, and evaluate revenue goals and budgeting together. It is critical to formulate targets in this way so you’re sharing a common goal – regardless of how you budget, your account-based marketing plan or even your inbound lead gen strategy. It’s important to find a common ground.

Read more: Smarter ways to align marketing with sales