B2B marketing for technology companies made easy

We are for many companies an outsourced marketing services firm that complements existing marketing teams, or act as the entire marketing team for the companies we support. What is very relevant to our engagement is the lack of understanding around sales and marketing. Who owns what part of the parcel.

The answer is far less complex than it needs to be. Quite simply, marketing provides the forum for sales to occur, and that means all marketing activations including brand awareness, lead generation campaigns and influence over buyer decision making. 

Sales teams require leads and those leads should be generated by marketing. Making this equation more complex than it has to be often causes inaction and excuses. A sales strategy is simply a set of goals for sales teams, yet a marketing strategy incorporates all the areas of marketing, public relations, advertising, promotion and events required to achieve the sales plan.

One of the biggest issues faced by sales and marketing is a constant debate over who should be responsible. Let's cut to the chase... marketing is responsible for all leads including inside sales and sales is responsible for presenting and closing.

How marketing teams can better support sales teams is:

• Have a comprehensive marketing strategy in place that improves brand awareness, creates influence and generates leads.
• Give sales team a platform where the brand is communicated as the thought leader and innovator for a particular technology software, solution or service.
• Continually filling the sales funnel with leads that are nurtured all the way to the sales team.
• Understanding the numbers and the challenges sales teams face.

It's 2021 and the archaic methods that many sales teams still deploy to get sales not only costs them sales, it stops businesses from achieving goals and ensures that they constantly have to produce excuses for not making budget.

Put the onus on your marketing team and get them to do what they do well, always ensuring that you are on the same team and that the sales team feels supported with case studies, PR, branding, events and so on.