SMarketing – Holy Grail or Pandora’s box?

Marketing and Sales alignment has been on the agenda since at least the start of the millennium.

Jeez, time sure does fly when your teams are at loggerheads!

• It has been nearly 20 years since we first witnessed the convergence of online search, content marketing, social selling and the emergence of the ‘educated’ buyer. [link to post]
  
• That’s two decades since the first clarion calls were heard urging us to create a new B2B sales and marketing model that fought the good fight under the unified banner of smarketing.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge – but sales and marketing are for many businesses still only linked by the weakest of bridges straddling some very troubled waters.

It’s true…

SMarketing has, in many ways, become our Holy Grail, with its promise of a deep and shared understanding of the customer, a set of clearly-defined shared goals and significant revenue growth as a result.

And yet…

Positive relationships between sales and marketing have proven to be something of a Pandora’s box: the more we open it, the deeper the issues we need to address appear. 

Is it proving to be a bridge too far?

That’s exactly what we’re looking to answer in this series of digestible insights, articles and commentary from some awesome B2B professionals. 

• We’ll analyse what the underlying issues are.
  
• Reveal how far we’ve travelled.
  
• And start to plot a way forward by keep building those bridges.

You’ve nothing to lose but your market share and profitability.

And, yes, it can be that serious if SMarketing is neglected – so stick around – this is going to be a journey well worth taking. 

Here’s the route we’ve got mapped out for you. 

1. Sales and marketing alignment: Are we there yet, or is it proving a bridge too far?
   What is the state of play? Here we set out how sales and marketing are looking through a tonne of research. Knowing what you’re facing, is essential before you set out to build your sales and marketing dream team.
2. Sales vee marketing
   We couldn’t have put it better ourselves. So we’re not. We break down how Gary Vee, in his own unique style, gets right to the guts of the matter. Prepare for an entertaining view. 
3. When balls-out boys met the tits and teeth department
   Here we explore the labels sales and marketing get stuck with, and where these stereotypes stem from. Understand the beast, and then you might know how to tackle it.

Why should you listen to us?

With 20 years of experience behind all of our marketing directors, we’ve seen SMarketing done well – and we’ll share with you how to achieve it.

We’ve stepped in to situations where marketing was the poor neglected child in the corner, bullied by sales – and we’ve built the team up to be a credible, high-performing part of the business. 

We’ve also been asked to help out where a marketing team was not doing its job in supporting sales – and we’ve turned things around. 

Now we’re putting all of our experience into this insightful series of articles – so you can do the same.

You’ll hear from some other brilliant bods too

We’ve also tapped into the real-life experiences – good, bad and ugly – from our network of peers. 

You’ll benefit from the first-hand experiences of those at the front-line, as they share actual examples of SMarketing wins, failures and learnings. 

What can you do with all this SMarketing learning and insight?

• You will take away industry benchmarks from established B2B sales and marketing professionals to share within your business.
• You’ll be able to demonstrate to your boss exactly how it can work – and you’ll have tangible examples of what SMarketing looks like and what it can achieve.
• You’ll gain a vision of what can be that will excite and enthuse those around you.
• Most importantly, you’ll understand exactly how to start making SMarketing happen.

Read the first in the series – Sales and marketing alignment: Are we there yet, or is it proving a bridge too far?