In an ideal world, the sales side of a business should be well-aligned with marketing and other teams that help shape the business’s revenue strategy. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case.
The average degree of alignment between sales and marketing in B2B organizations is a dismal 16%, according to industry research by MarketingWeek. That means the vast majority of businesses lack an integrated go-to-market strategy. The right hand simply isn’t talking to the left hand (for that matter, neither hand is talking to either foot).
The consequences are profound: When teams aren’t collaborating and coordinating on revenue strategy, the business will likely inadvertently send confusing or conflicting messaging to its customers. The messaging may come at an uneven pace and suboptimal times, including poorly timed, non-tailored promotions and discounts.
The lack of an integrated go-to-market strategy also is enormously consequential for annual sales territory planning. To develop and manage effective, fairly assigned territories, businesses depend on robust coordination and planning by multiple teams, from sales and marketing to customer service to product development. Everyone must buy into and follow a single, integrated go-to-market strategy – sometimes known as a “smarketing” strategy (as in, a smart go-to-market strategy).
Let’s explore four strategies for fostering the development of a single, integrated go-to-market strategy that can effectively drive territory planning:
1. Never Pit Marketing Against Sales
Although it may seem obvious to avoid, many businesses shoot themselves in the foot by inadvertently pitting marketing against sales. The problem is that when sales goals aren’t met, each team’s instinct is to point fingers of blame at the other team. Sales may claim that marketing didn’t provide good leads, while marketing may claim that sales failed to close the leads provided to them.
Read: 4 Territory Planning Strategies To Avoid the Sales Ops Mindset
This behavior is counterproductive and benefits no one. To guard against this “blame game,” businesses must proactively foster unity, collaboration, and trust-building among teams. This process starts with collaboratively developing a go-to-market strategy. As sales and marketing establish a shared vision and strategy for revenue, it provides a solid foundation for both teams to collaborate on effective territory planning.
2. Provide Maximum Visibility and Transparency For Data
Read: 4 Ways to Eliminate Gut-Instinct Decisions From Territory Planning
Developing an integrated go-to-market strategy requires data from teams across the organization. However, teams instinctively tend to be protective of their data, to the point that they don’t even want other teams to know of its existence. Thus, it’s essential for businesses to proactively break down the barriers that limit the visibility and transparency of data. The best way to build a workplace culture that enables data sharing is to invest in cloud-based data infrastructure and collaboration platforms. When teams have unfettered access to data, they have the building blocks to develop a single, unified go-to-market strategy collaboratively. This integrated GTM, in turn, will support territory planning informed by hard data.
3. Prioritize a Seamless Transition from Sales to Customer Experience
Most businesses say they prioritize a seamless transition for customers from sales to customer experience. But for most of these businesses, customer experience teams are wholly disconnected from sales – even more so than marketing tends to be disconnected from sales. The consequences of this disconnect can be profound: A smooth handoff from sales to customer experience is central to a business’s ability to maintain healthy, personalized relationships with its customers over the long term and maintain the momentum initiated by the sales team.
Thus, a subpar handoff threatens the organization’s go-to-market strategy’s success and ultimately can lead to customer dissatisfaction and loss of customers. To achieve a seamless transition between sales and customer experience, businesses need to bring these two teams together to clarify roles and responsibilities, polish up customer journey touchpoints, and regularly review and discuss customer data. Through mutually beneficial interactions, sales and customer experience can help support the successful implementation of the organization’s GTM strategy, while simultaneously setting up the organization to engage in effective territory planning.
4. Identify Case Studies to Prove Out The Value of Your Integrated Go-To-Market Strategy
A go-to-market strategy is only as successful as the range of teams that invest meaningfully in developing and implementing it. To convince diverse teams to make this investment, businesses should share case studies that prove the value of an integrated go-to-market strategy. They can share stories about customer engagement and retention, new customer acquisition, accelerated sales cycles, and revenue growth. When teams are reminded firsthand about why the organization needs robust GTM, they’re more likely to be motivated to engage in developing and then executing the strategy – including building a strong foundation for effective territory planning.
Territory planning is successful when backed by an integrated go-to-market strategy shaped by diverse teams across the organization. To develop and execute a go-to-market strategy, businesses should never pit marketing against sales, should proactively seek to maximize the transparency and visibility of data across the organization, should ensure that the transition from sales to customer experience is seamless, and should publicize the business value of an integrated go-to-market strategy through case studies.
Read: 4 Ways To Put Your Customers at the Center of Territory Planning
Fullcast specializes in helping organizations conceptualize, design, and implement robust go-to-market strategies. Using our industry-leading RevOps Go-to-Market Cloud platform, organizations can optimize revenue and engage in practical, informed territory planning.
To learn more about Fullcast’s platform, go to https://www.fullcast.com/product/plan-collaborate/.
