How to align the areas of marketing and sales in the software industry

In previous articles, we have talked quite often about aligning marketing and sales in companies in all industries in general. We conclude that marketing must maintain fluid communication with the sales area and that the latter must receive quality SQL to manage them efficiently and effectively throughout the sales process.

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But is this form of alignment also viable for the software industry in particular? There is only one way to find out. In this article, we will try to answer this question, understanding that there may be more than one implication when it comes to aligning marketing and sales in the software industry.

Diagnosis of possible problems between marketing and sales

The marketing area in software companies often works on its own without having sales to make decisions. When a department becomes isolated in its daily activities and processes, this action is known as a silo. So, the general process of the entire marketing execution fails to deliver an output to the sales department that allows it to manage potential customers to sell them some technological solution.

When a software company generates more contacts but these have not been interviewed by the sales team, disputes can arise between the two areas, because they are working individually without producing synergy. As a result of this, the sales area may complain that the marketing area does not refer them to the appropriate contacts. While the marketing area can respond to the reproach that the sales department does not close enough deals.

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How to align the areas of marketing and sales in the software industry

The key to aligning marketing and sales is, among other things, betting on comprehensive meetings and technological tools to manage SQL. How? Next, we tell you.

1. Schedule meetings between the two areas.

The way to align marketing and sales in the software industry is, initially, to set up meetings between both areas, in which the outputs of the marketing process are defined so that they can be used as inputs to the sales process. In this way, if the marketing output becomes a sales input, both teams can work, and both the goals of one and the other can be aligned.

The starting point is to think of a macro process of the commercial area that involves both marketing and the sales area, where the marketing output is adequate for the sales input. That way, resources are not wasted and the results will be more favorable.

2. Align marketing and sales through SQL management.

Another important point to aligning marketing and sales in the software industry is that this output, or what we call SQL, is agreed to between the two areas. So the target customer is created between marketing and sales. In the case of a software company, it could be an x number of workers who apply to develop a software system with certain characteristics in several countries.

Marketing, knowing that this is their target customer, will create all their actions aimed at targeting that person. It is common for software companies to implement inbound to generate content and attract customers, which they then manage and pass on to the sales team. That content that creates marketing must also be aligned with the commercial team, identifying where the contacts come from, from which campaigns, what was downloaded and what was not, etc.

3. Implement a CRM for the proper management of potential customers.

This is a very interesting way to align marketing and sales. The implementation of a CRM accounts for the marketing effort so that sales can manage contacts. For example, in a software company, marketing transfers several contacts to sales. The 25-employee company seeks to develop an ERP system to manage its entire operation.

But the team does not have any system to develop that activity. So they cannot see what company it is, where it is from, what its purpose is, what it is for, how to contact it, where it came from, what pages it visited. In short, if the sales team does not have the proper management through a CRM, they will not be able to collect or analyze the data of their contacts, so it will be difficult for them to establish whether they are qualified leads or not.

4. Track indicators together.

KPIs can be used by software companies in conjunction with marketing and sales to monitor lead activity on the same platform to drive conversion.

A tech company's sales team typically measures their success on the demos they book, and their conversion rate evidencing a business opportunity. However, the marketing team focuses on the number of leads, website traffic, and clicks.

To prevent both areas from working separately, the indicators can generate the necessary metrics to track a lead from the moment they visit the site until they become a customer and decide to buy.

KPIs together will improve the efficiency of your business as they can analyze weak areas in the customer acquisition funnel or realign business strategy. Again, setting up frequent meetings between both departments will go a long way in building a consensus on joint indicators.

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In conclusion, aligning the areas of marketing and sales in the software industry goes beyond building a strategy that manages to attract more customers. It is joining efforts to produce such feedback between the marketing output and the sales area input that allows generating a greater impulse to the conversion of potential customers into customers that close deals.