Smarketing: Aligning areas

Smarketing sounds very attractive to implement but the key to integrating it is to keep the team aligned, which can be a true challenge. 

In other opportunities, we have dealt with the concept of ‘Smarketing’, a concept created by HubSpot that combines the strategies of the sales and marketing teams. Some years ago, ‘Smarketing’ was seen as an innovative and different idea but, today, it has become a need. Even though it's necessary to integrate two areas that have been rivals since the beginning of time, this change is not always easy to make because there's not only one way to do it. However, when you face this challenge, what's truly necessary is to keep the team aligned. 

Users are key

The first thing you need to do to integrate Smarketing in your company is making the marketing team and the sales team reach an agreement about who the key users are and what's the advantage the product is offering them. This task is easier if you use the concept of ‘buyer personas’, a representation of the users that look for products according to their needs, desires, and expectations. These ‘people’ help teams focus on the important leads and, by creating a profile for them together, the sales team, as well as the marketing team, can reach an agreement and avoid complaints about bad quality leads. 

You can't go against numbers

The following step towards the integration of the two areas is to reach an agreement as regards numbers. Here, you can use something known as SLA (Service Level Agreement), an agreement between the two areas that include a commitment of the marketing team about the number of leads that will be generated and the time in which the sales area will do a follow-up of these leads as well as the following actions to involve the prospects. 

Aligned towards one goal: increasing profits

Probably, the characteristic that both teams have in common is the fact that they always want to increase profits. Then, why don't we begin the integration strategy with a related question? Why don't you gather the new Smarketing team to share ideas? Technology can guarantee transparent and efficient communication, you just need to create confidence, collaboration, and honesty in your teams so that they are always focused on the same goal.