Sometimes it feels like marketing and sales are on opposing corners like Republicans and Democrats. Never mind that research shows that aligning the two makes a difference. Instead, are they debating the right issues? Instead of function-oriented debates, try changing it into buyer-oriented one.

What do you think about reframing the aligning around buyer orientation?

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Articles about the use of social media in B2B companies heavily focus on how to connect with customers and generate leads. Many forget that marketing internally also matters. Internal market focuses on educating employees about its marketing programs, the company’s customers and prospects and so on. Every single employee can affect your company, so you need to ensure they all send the same messages.

How are you making sure employees represent the company in a unified way?

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It’s easy to collect a lot of data. The hard part comes in making sense of it so you can act on it. The author offers up a solution in social intelligence, which involves gleaning insights from social communities.

What is an example of social intelligence?

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This ebook provides insights and suggestions to close the sales and marketing gap. As a result of bringing the two teams together, they’ll better define qualified lead and processes for generation and nurturing them. The eBook includes insights from various b2b marketing experts.

What is most valuable advice you’ve picked up from the ebook?

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Love how Rod Sloane uses cold war as an analogy in describing sales and marketing alignment, or lack thereof. Cut the detente’ and see better results.

When was the last time you focused on aligning sales and marketing in your company?

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Five Challenges for Sales and Marketing

Yet another article showing the importance of aligning marketing and sales. “A brand is merely the promise of an experience.  In order to experience the brand, one must generally purchase the product or service of the brand.  In order to purchase the product or service of the brand, you need to provide a selling channel.”

Marketing is about branding. Sales is about revenue. Putting both in the same boat and paddling in the same direction will make those a reality. But of course, there are challenges in getting them in the same boat going in the same direction.

What other challenges do you see in aligning marketing and sales?

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Sales and Marketing Alignment

Download the free 20-page guide on how to create a marketing plan that incorporates personas, builds a team and uses different demand generation approaches. The guide also includes tips for building a sales and marketing machine, staffing, timeline and budgets.

What do you think of the advice given in the blueprint?

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Align Sales and Lead Flow

This article takes you through the process of aligning sales and marketing in the lead flow process. It also identifies alignment problems and how to work through them to gain qualified leads and close the deal. And aligning marketing and sales is indeed a journey, not a destination.

What do you think of the article’s approach?

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Encourage Sales

If you’ve been reading the articles we share on marketing and sales alignment, you understand why it’s important to get the two teams in sync. But how do you make it happen? What I like about this article is how it breaks down the five ways without overwhelming you. It’s not a long article.

What do you think of these five tasks?

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5 Ways to Integrate

This article touts the importance of integrating sales and marketing. Many of us agree on this, but many of us don’t know how to make that happen or we tried and failed. Author Jeff Ogden goes so far to give real-life examples and how the companies went about solving problems. Ogden closes with five tips for integrating sales and marketing.

Here are the five tips:

1. Put your most respected executives on it along with outside help like Find New Customers.
2. Give them the full and vocal support of top leadership.
3. Provide them with time to uncover existing processes and challenges.
4. Support them to implement new processes.
5. Measure and test.  Make sure the culture really changed.

How do you think applying the five tips will affect an organization?

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Integrate Marketing and Sales

Mac McIntosh interviews Elizabeth Vanneste, CMO of Miller Heiman, with a focus on aligning sales and marketing. What does it mean to align sales and marketing? Vanneste clearly defines what it means to align the two and references a study that shows the effectiveness of aligning the two.

I’ve always believe in the importance of sales and marketing collaboration. What are some ways you can get the two to collaborate for the good of the company?

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Listen to your Sales Team

Listen to your sales team
by Kipp Bodnar – Hubspot

This list of marketing lessons comes from the MarketingProfs B2B Forum. You’ll find tips for keywords, content, email marketing, social media, sales.

What’s one marketing lesson you’ve learned recently? [ Read original article ]

Profiting from Lead Generation

Combining lead generation and marketing to drive performance
by Marie Griffin – BtoB Media Business

How do you present your lead generation effort? Do you sell by convincing customers they need your product or service? Or do you find out what customers need? Several companies share their successful lead generation processes and how they balance the various mediums.

What works for you in generating leads? [ Read original article ]

Bridge the Social Media Gap

As if sales and marketing didn’t have enough to divide the two, marketing-leaning social media adds to the friction. It is possible to bring together b2b social media and b2b sales. This article lists four ways to apply what b2b sales already uses and tie it with social media.
 
 We also posted reader advice on how to help sales with social media.
 
 How would you bridge the gap between social media and sales? [ Read more ... ]

The Dichotomy Issue

Many of us agree that social media is a great venue for listening and interacting with customers, colleagues, experts and more. But some people in marketing remain stuck in traditional marketing and need help to integrate social media rather than look at it as dichotomy.

What can we do to help marketing become more integrated instead of siloed? [ Read more ... ]

Sales vs. Marketing

Though having similar goals, sales and marketing often compete against each other or butt heads instead of work together to reach their goals. They’re both important to the company especially when they collaborate. As a result, the business grows. Each brings a perspective the other can use.

How do you think sales and marketing should work? [ Read more ... ]

Sales and Marketing Optimization

Marketing brings in leads while sales follows up. So why would these two not in alignment? One problem could be how some define “alignment.” Crandell believes that a definition that works for all can make a difference in improving sales and marketing alignment.

How would a definition of sales and marketing alignment help or not? [ Read more ... ]

by John Stein - Stein’s Way

Sales and Marketing

Are you combining your sales and marketing efforts? This is not the approach to take. Each has its own function. Stein shares his definitions.

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Sales vs. Marketing

[Watch video ...]

Wouldn’t it be great if you could twist those meetings into something useful — rather than just a waste of your valuable time?

Never fear, it’s pretty easy to hijack a meeting and make it go wherever you think is useful.

Read more ….

What is YOUR meeting pet peeve?  Let’s us know in comments below and be entered into a drawing for an Apple iPod.

This sales person admits that he takes marketing for granted and asks readers what they think sales SHOULD do.

In many B2B companies there seems to be a disconnect between sales and marketing when they should be working together not against each other.

Please comment on how sales and marketing could improve their relationship. (You could win an IPOD)