Integrating Marketing & Sales Efforts
By Charlie Alter
article courtesy of allbusiness.com  

When you integrate your internal marketing and sales efforts, you improve your company's ability to measure the results of marketing campaigns and develop tactics focused on increasing sales and improving profits. No strategy to drive growth and success will increase sales and market share without a successful marketing and sales plan.

Why
Even if you have a marketing capability, which in my experience most midsize and smaller manufacturers do not, it is probably overburdened. Additionally, your sales function may not be as outwardly focused as it needs to be to grow sales in these difficult times. Your company needs to develop the capacity to navigate changing markets and increased competition and translate all of this into a plan you can execute. Continually asking where your next market is and who your next customers are is a best practice in achieving profitable growth, and the key to successful market diversification.

The primary metrics of an integrated marketing and sales plan are as follows:
  Increased sales
  Improved repeat sales
  Entrance into new markets
  Development of new customers
  Formation of stronger sales channels and distribution networks
  Identifying your best opportunities to grow now and in the future

What
The typical components of an integrated marketing and sales plan are:
  Research and analysis
  Planning and development
  Marketing and sales management

Research and Analysis
Implementation starts with an analysis of existing products and markets and assessment of new opportunities. These topics have been covered in the first four articles in this series. Growing your business requires actionable information for making informed decisions about markets to pursue, understanding who your best customers are (both now and in the future), and assessing your competitive landscape.

Typical activities include:
  Most valuable customer, product and market analysis
  New market opportunity analysis
  Market research
  Confidential competitive intelligence
  Customer interviews
  Product and service assessments
  Customer satisfaction surveys

Planning and Development
It's critical to translate the research and analysis step into an actionable plan, which will likely include some or all of the following:
  Sales and marketing audit: What you are doing now, how it is working and what needs to improve
  Marketing Toolkits: Developed internally or with outside assistance
  Value proposition and message development: What's in it for the customer to work with your
    company, what is meaningfully unique about your company and why customers should care and
    believe you can deliver
  Business development strategies: Acting as a bridge between marketing and sales to uncover
    trends and opportunities to pursue
  Web-based and new Web 2.0 marketing strategies: Marketing and PR tactics have changed
    dramatically and your company needs to understand how to use them better
  Development of target customer profiles: Who, What, Where, Why, How, When
  Brand strategy: Improving the perception of your company's identity

Marketing and Sales Management
Managing the marketing aspects of your plan to support sales should include the following:
  Lead generation and business opportunity qualification
  Sales pipeline management
  Sales effectiveness training
  Improving sales team efficiency and genuine selling time
  Activity tracking and monitoring

By determining how your company can integrate marketing and sales efforts, you will position it to grow sales profitably now and in the future. Help is available through CONNSTEP. However, the leadership in any company is the real driver for diversifying markets and finding new customers.

Next month the final article in this series focuses on developing and executing your market diversification plan.