Marketing professionals live for campaigns; Sales professionals loathe them. The heart of their disagreement is this: of all the leads that Marketing brings into the pipeline, not that many actually result in booked revenue. It’s a constant challenge – and it’s rooted in the lack of alignment between Sales and Marketing, where Marketing is responsible for all aspects of demand generation while Sales comes in at the tail end to pursue any leads which may have resulted from the exercise. Everyone wants better campaign results, and happily, there is a way.

Seeking Council

I work for a Boston-based company called Egenera, Inc., which provides technology for large data center operations. A few years ago, we faced that same disconnect between Marketing and Sales. So we tried a new approach to bringing the two teams together, and it seems to be working. What we did was to form a joint Sales-Marketing Campaign Council. Its charter is to improve campaign leads and increase their conversion into revenue. The Council is chaired by the CMO and includes Product Marketing, the director of inside sales, the Director of Marketing Programs, a Sales account executive, and a pre-sales consultant. The VPs of Sales and Sales Operations have open invitations to attend the Council and actually come on many occasions. Meeting monthly, the Council is responsible for making major campaign decisions, establishing milestones, and reviewing progress.

Part of the problem had been that Sales was never exposed to the way campaigns were created. Once we established the Council, they provided a reality check during the campaigns’ planning and execution stages. As a result, many campaign ideas were totally restructured and the metrics set for the campaigns became more realistic.

As campaign results were processed and reported at Council meetings, Sales highlighted several gaps in the campaign process which had contributed to lost leads. At the same time, Sales also began to appreciate the need for lead tracking and to understand a campaign’s overall impact on company performance. Eventually, the heightened cooperation that flowed from Sales’ enthusiasm as being part of the Council spilled over into other areas.

Letting Go

It was a two-way street. Sales’ involvement increased the success of marketing campaigns by taking advantage of their intimate market knowledge. Their understanding of target prospects’ needs, of offers that truly resonate, and of competitive objections that need to be overcome, were a tremendous help. But legitimate differences remain, Sales has neither the time nor the interest to be involved in every step of a marketing campaign. Nor should they be. Their job is to find sales opportunities and convert them into revenue as quickly as possible.

For some, the scary part in aligning sales and marketing through a joint ownership process is that both sides need to let go of certain task ownership and accept new responsibilities. Marketing had traditionally owned the entire campaign lifecycle and jealously guarded its proprietorship. Under an aligned arrangement, Marketing needed to relinquish some of that control and instead rely on Sales for guidance on messaging and promotional offers. Sales, in turn, needed to own the campaign results. Active involvement by Sales is required for the quality of campaign leads to improve. But by the same token, sales needed to let go of playing the revenue blame game.

Choosing Members

Determining which individuals from Sales should be involved, and exactly how they should be involved, is the first step. Positioning Sales’ participation correctly is critical; it should be done jointly by Marketing and Sales leadership. For example, one way to position the choice of Sales representative is as recognition of sales achievement. Invite only those account executives and pre-sales members who routinely meet their sales quotas. Sales leadership should determine who qualifies by using an objective, transparent metric.

To give all Sales personnel who qualify an opportunity to serve on the Council, we limit Sales’ council seats to one domestic account executive, one international account executive, and one pre-sales consultant, on either a quarterly or six-month rotation. The actual number of Sales representatives can vary according to the company’s selling model. But if the expectations are properly set, participating Sales representatives will take their involvement seriously.

The key to determining the frequency of Sales’ rotation should relate to the typical lifecycle of a company’s campaign, and those times vary. Participating in a campaign from ideation through post-mortem is critical so that Sales can understand the process and decisions which need to be made along the way. Evaluation of campaign results and of lessons learned can only come from participating through the entire lifecycle.

Nuts and Bolts

Campaign Council sessions are generally structured as review and decision meetings. The campaign business case and project plan form its framework. Marketing brings its work products and progress reports to Council meetings for updates, decisions and changes. Throughout each campaign’s lifecycle, the Council reviews objectives, target results, messages, offers, and resulting pipeline.

For Sales to most effectively influence the process, it is helpful to outline where in the campaign lifecycle Sales should take ownership of specific tasks. For example, Sales’ guidance is especially critical in developing effective messaging and sales offers, setting campaign target objectives, in-flight adjustment of offers and messaging, and evaluating an entire campaign after all the leads have been through the sales process.

Having set up several Campaign Councils myself, here are some of the lessons I’ve learned:

• Keep it small - The Council is an oversight and decision group, not a detail working team
• No-fault results - Since the council is a partnership, both Sales and Marketing are accountable for campaign results
• Start small - Begin with one campaign; as the Council becomes more comfortable in its role, expand the number of campaigns the Council oversees
• Share, share, share - Communicate campaign council decisions and campaign results with management members and the whole sales organization
• Keep it short - Make the meetings brief and in-person; once a month for no more than 90 minutes.
• Secure leadership - Make sure either the Sales or Marketing leader presides over each meeting
  

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A central goal in aligning Sales and Marketing is to understand each other’s charter, goals, resources and the linkages between activities and results. Sales’ involvement in campaigns helps them understand the connections between marketing activities and leads. Their involvement, in turn, builds Marketing’s understanding of customer needs, expectations, and the link between leads originated by Marketing and sales revenue actually realized.

Both groups learn to appreciate each other’s strengths and unique perspectives. More importantly, both share a common goal of optimizing the revenue potential of any marketing dollars spent. The direct outcome of their alignment is a bigger pipeline with more velocity. Beyond that, the entire company benefits indirectly from more effective messaging, heightened market responsiveness, and reduced inter-departmental squabbling. But perhaps the greatest winner of all from aligning Sales and Marketing is the customer.