Alyssa Merwin is Vice President of Global Sales Solutions at LinkedIn.
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B2B and B2C businesses play in two very different worlds. Even when sales and marketing teams work in silos in a B2C environment, brand familiarity and straightforward purchase decisions are often on their side. However, when it comes to B2B, sellers and marketers may face just the opposite—B2B organizations are not always household names, and they’re trying to influence an entire buying committee, not just a single consumer.
In the B2B world, only 5% of prospective customers are looking to buy a product at a given time, according to LinkedIn research. Combine that with significant shifts across channels, spikes and drops in demand, evolving buyer preferences, emerging technologies and even how the world of work is changing today, and it’s easy to see why close collaboration across B2B go-to-market teams is critical.
The Evolution Of Sales And Marketing Functions
At the foundational level, go-to-market teams have a shared objective of converting prospects to customers. But in today’s environment, the buying process is nonlinear, and sales and marketing need to be more strategic and flexible than ever before.
Marketing teams need to research and understand the unique personas of their target audience and establish first contact with this group so they can nurture relationships with messaging and unique, value-adding insights over time. For their part, sellers need to not only know who to engage but also understand the key relationships within the organization and who holds the influence.
The Sweet Spot: Sales And Marketing Working Hand-In-Hand
Knowing how B2B organizations are evolving—and how unpredictable and challenging external factors have become—there are three key actions sales and marketing leaders can take right now to create more alignment.
1. Audit your channel mix: With hybrid selling as the future, according to new McKinsey research, the customer journey will be spread out across many more touchpoints. In 2016, B2B buyers typically used five channels for decision making, and that figure doubled to 10 channels by 2021. Take a step back and assess the channels you’re investing in. Is your brand present in the right places? Are your teams prepared to engage customers across all of these different channels? Once you’ve audited your channel mix, adjust as needed to make sure you're reaching as much of the market as possible and setting the stage for sales.
2. Prioritize the most impactful activities: Many sales and marketing teams still focus on what used to work: mass marketing messages and impersonalized outreach via cold calling. This approach needs to stay in the past because the way to win in today’s environment is quality over quantity. LinkedIn data shows that prospects are 86% more likely to accept an InMail if the seller viewed their profile first, indicating the importance of researching and understanding prospects. And on the marketing front, creativity increasingly matters—new YouGov research that LinkedIn commissioned found that 82% of B2B marketing leaders surveyed across the globe believe “creative confidence” is growing. Find what actions truly move the needle with your prospects and make them a core part of your strategy.
3. Strengthen connections across different inputs: Many organizations have multiple solutions, but that’s an ineffective model if the tools are not building on one another. Are your marketing analytics informing sales activities? Can you leverage those insights for territory design or account prioritization? Minimizing data silos across functions provides both marketers and sellers with a more holistic view and increases the likelihood of sales success.
A B2B Success Story
In purposefully and effectively bringing sales and marketing closer together, B2B organizations are poised to gain a deeper understanding of the buying process and unlock new opportunities. In fact, LinkedIn’s 2022 State of Sales report notes that 70% of the highest performing sales professionals surveyed—individuals who meet 150% of their quota—identified their marketing leads as “excellent,” a nod to the role that marketing can play in driving sales success. While sales and marketing alignment isn’t new, in today’s constantly evolving B2B landscape, many organizations will find that a refreshed approach to collaboration goes a long way in driving greater business impact.
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