Sales leaders say that aligning commercial functions such as sales and marketing strategies is their top priority for 2023, according to a new survey from Gartner.
The research group surveyed more than 200 sales leaders last November and December to understand how sales teams align their go-to-market approach to changing customer needs.
“As buyer journeys become more complex commercial organisations must deliver a more integrated human and digital customer learning experience,” says Billy Luckey, director, Advisory in the Gartner Sales Practice. “Breaking down silos between sales and marketing to ensure a seamless, multichannel purchase experience is an incremental, but fruitful, process.
“Sales organisations that align cross-functional KPIs are nearly three-times more likely to exceed new customer acquisition targets,” Luckey adds.
However, the survey revealed that the majority of sales organisations actually face challenges with unifying their commercial strategies. For example, 62% of respondents describe their sales and marketing functions as defining qualified leads differently. This often leads to inefficient and ineffective customer engagement.
Sales organisations are also torn on when and how to use human-led and/or digital-led channels when engaging with customers.
According to a separate survey of 771 B2B buyers conducted in the same period, 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience, but those who purchase through digital channels alone are more likely to regret their purchase. Concurrently, buyers who are led by sales reps are less likely to complete a high quality deal.
“It’s imperative for commercial organisations to integrate digital and human-led channels to deepen customers’ understanding of their own needs, leading them to buy more than originally planned,” says Michael Katz, director, Research in the Gartner Sales Practice. “B2B organisations that unify commercial strategies and leverage multi-threaded commercial engagements will realise revenue growth that outperforms their competition by 50%.”
To do this, Gartner recommends sales organisations:
* Diagnose and evaluate their commercial organisations’ maturity compared to competitors and peers across six key areas: audience understanding, messaging, measurement, revenue enablement, process design, and customer data and systems. For example, sales leaders should look internally at how they are defining qualified leads and their go-to-market strategy.
* Prioritise which maturity area(s) map back to the larger organisational goals and develop a plan for integration, resources and timeline. Each area is equally important, but should be tackled according to what’s most pressing in the near-term.
* Launch a targeted strategy to address at least one gap in maturity through a process, motion, tool, or other solution. One example of a joint sales and marketing activity that contributes to progressive maturity within messaging might be establishing co-created integrated multichannel engagement.