Your B2B Sales Reps Are A Medium, And The Medium Is The Message

By Isaac Pellerin, Channel Marketing Manager, Octiv               

Contrary to popular belief, establishing and maintaining a company’s brand and messaging is not solely the responsibility of the marketing department. In today’s digital, multi-touchpoint world, the customer journey has evolved to cover much more territory. The path from awareness to purchase also contains new twists and turns, making the alignment between sales and marketing — as well as the rest of an organization — more critical than ever.

That's why a company’s brand messaging and customer promise must be consistent and clear. They must also accurately represent what the entire organization can deliver. From first touchpoint to close, each member of an organization’s team needs to tell the same story. Whether a customer is reading materials created by the marketing team, talking to a salesperson, or interacting with product support, the customer should feel like they are talking to the same person. Though it may seem like a small thing, continuity and consistency across the different stages of the customer journey are essential to establishing trust.

While maintaining consistent branding and messaging across all touchpoints is no small undertaking, the effort is worth it. Studies have shown that cross-functional alignment, such as between marketing and sales, can be directly tied to revenue growth — as much as 36 percent  — for B2B companies.

The formula for alignment has four core steps: integration, consistency, connectedness, and evaluation. By following these guidelines, organizations will better able to achieve true alignment and collaboration.

Step 1: Integrate Salespeople Into The Brand Conversation
Organizations can’t create sales-marketing alignment unless they’re willing to include everyone in the conversation. While marketing takes the lead on defining and articulating brand messaging, it’s important to incorporate useful input from other team members from sales and product. Market and audience research are key to developing a standout brand, but the insights that plugged-in salespeople and in-the-trenches product managers can deliver are equally as important.

Step 2: Ensure Consistency Of Sales Cycle Assets
To ensure the delivery of a consistent customer experience (from customer to customer and touchpoint to touchpoint), each team member must use the same set of tools. Identify the key assets used for each stage of your sales cycle and work with a cross-functional team to make sure all documents are consistent in terms of content, presentation, and purpose. Standardizing documents and automating the process will help increase efficiency while also protecting brand integrity.

Step 3: Use Data To Bind Departments
In a world filled with constant messages and distractions, creating a satisfying and engaging customer experience continues to be more important than ever. Buyers are realizing they have more power in the process, which can lead to fewer opportunities for businesses to make a lasting impression. While gaps can sometimes exist between departments and respective systems, ensuring alignment among departments is imperative to better understand buyer needs to create the proper materials and deliver the ideal customer experience. The result will be a less fragmented, more organized buying experience for customers.

Step 4: Evaluate And Adjust Alignment Regularly
Finally, sales and marketing leaders must accept that sales-marketing alignment is not a set-it-and-forget-it task. Half the battle with alignment, once achieved, is maintaining it. Check in with all functional teams on a regular basis. Find out what works and what doesn't, where the system is breaking down, and where there might need to be additional opportunities to strengthen the brand experience.

Sales-marketing alignment is a cyclical process. It starts and ends with an open dialog between different functional roles. This is a task that may never be done, but it’s one that will deliver a great return on investment over the long-term.

Isaac Pellerin is channel marketing manager at Octiv (formerly TinderBox). With nearly 10 years of experience in SaaS marketing he has served in strategic and creative roles that generate revenue for high growth companies. Today, he seeks out partnerships with companies focused on empowering sales organizations to make their number. To learn more about the SaaS Buyer Journey Timeline and the data from Octiv and market research company Forrester, visit octiv.com.