Sales and marketing alignment: an analysis by statistics
In this article we want to deal with marketing sales alignment using an analytical prism that we do not always use in our productions, namely statistics. Hubspot provides numerous quantified analyses based on the data of companies using their technologies.
Let’s look at 7 eloquent statistics that demonstrate the value of a perfectly aligned sales marketing strategy, based on the analysis of the target’s mirror: your Buyer persona.
Marketing alignment: 6 out of 10 buyers want to discuss the price at first contact
Keep in mind that more than one in two buyers will try to discuss your price, or obtain a relatively precise price range.
Any good salesman knows that price is the last information to provide to his buyer, after insisting on the quality of his product, the usefulness of his solution, the advantages of the latter over another etc. In a commercial discussion on complex services, dropping the price without having oriented one’s discourse above all towards the discovery of needs, and the commercial pitch according to needs, is a dangerous situation.
This is why the SDR / AE breakdown becomes relevant, as the SDR has the right to use price information only for filtering purposes, i.e. when the SDR detects a low budget potential, addressing pricing aspects in broad terms can detect buyers who do not have the necessary budget or motivation to move forward. And avoid promising false opportunities to the Account Executive. Outside this configuration, the SDR does not have the sales function and therefore does not have the flexibility to address prices.
Marketing alignment: buyers are not very concerned about qualification topics
Buyers are less concerned with the qualification topics that salespeople want to address, such as budget, decision-maker or deadlines. Only one in four buyers wants to address these aspects.
This is why it is important to create solid interview guides, as well as to define non-malleable indicators so that opportunities are well qualified when they reach the Account Executives.
Indeed, buyers are much more inclined to discuss their issues and objectives, and to argue in an attempt to understand the interest of a seller’s solution. Anything related to the budget, the decision-maker or the project deadline makes buyers uncomfortable. This is normal, since these are crucial elements for the sales representative who will use them to build a purchasing path that is favourable to the seller and not to the buyer.
It is therefore necessary to formalize the indicators, and to provide techniques and methods to obtain this crucial information from the buyer.
Marketing alignment: at least 50% of your prospects are not affected by what you sell
This statistic speaks for itself. It highlights the importance of effective sales and marketing alignment, and the importance of a well-designed Inbound purchasing path. Because in this Inbound Sales approach, the sorting of opportunities is key. Indeed, your solution meets the needs of a specific target audience that is more or less diffuse. However, your ideal customer is probably not the only type of suspect that may be affected by your solution. You will therefore be approached by suspects who need, or believe they need, your solution, without having the resources or characteristics necessary to be eligible.
You therefore need a purchasing path built around your ideal customer, and materialize it with questions to ask or key information to source, to properly measure the prospect’s potential and its suitability with your prerequisites.
Marketing alignment: 90% of buyers want to contact a sales representative during their awareness phase.
There are several ways to make sure you give your buyers what they want: to be in contact with a sales representative during the awareness phase, namely the discovery of your offer. The best way is to build awareness content with calls to actions leading to premium content such as White Papers, allowing you to qualify your audience and collect contact information about your potentially interested visitors. This echoes my previous paragraph, since it is obvious that, in your quest to become your own media, you will welcome an audience that, although very interested in your content and your offer, is not the ideal customer and can therefore be a waste of time and investment.
Several choices are available to you:
- Practice tracking to identify visitors and research their profiles in order to qualify them internally.
- Scoring to ensure that the person who downloaded your resources has ideal customer characteristics: company size, sector of activity, number of employees, etc.
- Propose to the audience to self-qualify, through segmented contact forms that immediately exclude visitors who do not have the typical characteristics of the ideal customer.
- You should also keep the buying process in mind, because even if your buyer now wants to talk to you, you will not convince him to buy at this stage most often.
He simply wants to confirm his first feeling: that you are likely to help him solve his problems. So this is the moment when you have to confirm his feeling, without saying too much or not enough.
Marketing alignment: more than half of prospects want to see how your solution works, from the first contact
This statistic extends the previous paragraph. Indeed, not all buyers will contact you at the same stage of maturity of the offer, nor maturity in their purchasing process. It is therefore necessary to measure the stage at which your interlocutor is located in order to adapt your speech and provide him/her with the right information at the right time.
If your first contact is at the awareness stage, your speech should be focused on the needs and issues of the prospect, and you should limit yourself to demonstrating an understanding of the issues and dealing with the same clients every day that are similar to your interlocutor.
You should not disclose your methodology or approach too early, as the interlocutor could use this information without your help to apply your advice.
Conversely, if your interlocutor is already very advanced in his or her purchasing process, it can be dangerous not to disclose enough information about your method, as you may generate frustration and mistrust.
You therefore need to be very agile to analyze, understand and adapt to your interlocutor, and to master your interactions, to give him the right information at the right time and to establish a fruitful business relationship.
Marketing alignment: 60% of buyers want to contact a sales representative at the consideration stage.
after qualifying several options and keeping the “best” ones.
This statistic resonates with my previous point. Indeed, 60% of buyers who want to meet you at the consideration stage are interested in your solution because they believe you can solve their problem. But, at this stage, you will never be alone in the race, and your buying experience must be well built and convincing.
To be effective at this stage, you need to focus on discovering the customer. You must be attentive and able to detect information “hidden between the lines”. Asking the right questions and reacting well to the information obtained positions you as a partner and not as a simple salesperson looking to push your solution.
You can also inject your knowledge of its environment, acquired through your experience of similar problems, or simply through effective sourcing. This shows your ability to empathize and understand who he is and what drives him. Because one need always hides another. Similarly, although your interlocutor may ask you as an expert, he or she may not be ready to adopt your vision rather than his or her own or another one. You must therefore position yourself as a humble decision-making aid rather than a salesperson.
Marketing alignment: 20% of buyers want to contact the sales team at the decision-making stage
Indeed, some digitized buyers are able to move forward on their own in their purchasing process. If they want to get in touch at this stage, it is because there are not many people left in the running to win the contract. These buyers therefore expect a much more concrete level of discussion on the method, execution conditions, tariffs, deadlines, etc.
You must quickly identify the contacts who are at this stage of maturity, as not disclosing enough information could lead your prospect to your competitor.
These prospects should be given your full attention because they are the most likely to move on to the act of buying.
In this article We discuss marketing-sales alignment, which seems to be the only way for companies that are effectively negotiating the digital shift.
The logic of a content-driven purchasing journey is a powerful tool for creating an audience, qualifying it and transforming it into a customer. But this requires a lot of effort and investment to achieve fluid coherence and efficiency gains. A poorly constructed purchasing and content path can lead to too much waste and therefore to a devastating loss of opportunities.
Mechanics must therefore be part of a global thinking and strategy. Each content and customer contact point must be planned, planned and used for customer relations.
Similarly, the flexibility inherent in the human aspect of trade relations must be framed by a clear and transparent process, strong enough not to go beyond the overall strategy.
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