Sales and Marketing Alignment

Written by Peter | Jan 30, 2025 11:02:35 AM

Companies with “tightly aligned” sales and marketing departments reach 24% faster revenue growth! Yet Sales and marketing teams, more often than not, don't work well together to make this a reality for most companies.

There are frequently significant challenges when it comes to aligning these two groups. However, applying effort to solving this friction is certainly worthwhile as it can yield faster business growth.

Understanding how to successfully align Sales and Marketing teams

One of the best ways to cut to the heart of the problem and put a strategy in place that works for both sales and marketing is simply aligning Account Based Marketing (ABM) with Account Based Selling,

So what is ABM?

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a highly focused strategy where marketing and sales teams work together to target specific high-value accounts rather than casting a wide net to attract a broad audience. It’s particularly popular in B2B marketing because it allows companies to personalise their approach to key prospects and tailor their campaigns to the unique needs and pain points of those accounts.

In essence, ABM flips the traditional marketing funnel by starting with the target accounts and working to deeply engage them, creating a more efficient and effective path to conversion.

What is Account Based Sales?

As you would imagine, Account Based Selling is very similar to Account Based Marketing...

With a distinct 4 part framework

Identify target accounts
Research and create customised outreach
Prospect key decision-makers
Measure and optimise

Account Based Sales is a proven strategy that most popular B2B Sales Methodologies are based on.

Some of the most significant benefits include:

Higher conversion rates—Account-based selling achieves higher conversion rates than other sales strategies by focusing on high-value accounts.
Increased revenue - Targeting key accounts enables businesses to boost revenue, as these accounts offer greater sales potential.
Enhanced customer retention - Businesses can strengthen customer retention by fostering robust relationships through personalised outreach and ABM engagement.

To maximise the success of Account-Based Sales (ABS), consider aligning Account-Based Marketing (ABM) with your ABS Strategy. This will create a cohesive strategy in which sales and marketing teams work together on a targeted set of accounts, aiming for higher engagement and conversion rates.

Sales teams typically maintain consistent target account lists and territories, which, although not set in stone, tend to remain stable and are not as campaign-driven as marketing activities. Therefore, it is more sense to align marketing efforts with sales activities rather than vice versa.

Here’s how you can align ABM with ABS effectively;

1. Provide Account Insights to Accelerate Conversations

How ABM Helps: ABM can dive deeper into account behaviour, identifying what engages the target account. For example, it can track how decision-makers interact with content or what pain points they are interested in. This intelligence equips sales reps with specific insights for their outreach.
Sales Impact: Sales teams can enter conversations with a precise understanding of what interests each account. Instead of relying on assumptions, reps can address key challenges, demonstrate knowledge of the account’s needs, and start more informed, personalised conversations.

2. Create Personalised, Account-Specific Content for Sales

How ABM Helps: ABM can create high-quality, account-specific content (like custom case studies, tailored presentations, and personalized proposals). This content is crafted with specific accounts in mind and helps sales reps have more relevant and impactful discussions.
Sales Impact: Sales teams have easy access to relevant materials that speak directly to an account's issues, making it easier to move the conversation forward. This allows sales reps to immediately send something tailored to that account, reducing the need for them to create custom content themselves.

3. Support Sales at Every Stage of the Funnel

How ABM Helps: ABM can engage accounts even before sales reps make direct outreach and continue nurturing through targeted content that addresses various stages of the buyer’s journey. Even post-conversion, ABM can play a role in cross-selling and upselling.
Sales Impact: Sales teams benefit from this ongoing nurturing, as leads that come to them are already warmed up. When an account is ready to engage, the sales rep doesn’t have to start from scratch but can pick up right where marketing left off, using relevant messaging and materials to continue the conversation.

4. Provide Real-Time Data and Engagement Insights

How ABM Helps: ABM tools track real-time account activity and engagement. For example, ABM can provide insights into which emails a decision-maker opened, which webinars they attended, or which case studies they downloaded.
Sales Impact: Sales teams can use this real-time data to prioritize which accounts to reach out to immediately. For example, if an account interacts with specific content pieces, the sales rep can follow up on that topic directly, showing they’re in tune with the account’s interests.

5. Ensure Consistent, Relevant Messaging Across Touchpoints

How ABM Helps: ABM ensures that all communication—whether from marketing or sales—is aligned in terms of messaging, positioning and offers for a particular account.
Sales Impact: Marketers don't risk introducing conflicting messages when marketing and sales teams are aligned. This consistency strengthens the trust with accounts and ensures that the sales team has a unified approach when engaging with decision-makers.

6. Enhance Outreach Through Account-Specific Campaigns

How ABM Helps: ABM can run highly-targeted ad campaigns or email sequences designed to engage specific accounts. These campaigns can be tailored to an account’s challenges, industry trends, or even specific decision-makers within the company.
Sales Impact: Sales teams can use these campaigns as part of their outreach. For instance, when an account engages with ABM-driven content (like a retargeted ad or a personalised email), the salesperson can reference this engagement in their outreach, creating a smoother transition and a higher chance of conversion.

7. Provide Sales with a Detailed Handoff Process

How ABM Helps: ABM helps ensure there is a clear and structured handoff when accounts move from marketing-qualified to sales-qualified. Including Sales input in the lead scoring setup makes this much more effective. ABM platforms or processes can track key milestones in an account’s engagement (e.g., they’ve attended a webinar, downloaded specific resources, etc.), ensuring sales has full visibility into where the account stands.
Sales Impact: The sales team doesn’t have to waste time qualifying the account or determining where it stands in the journey—they can pick up right where marketing left off, with clear context and engagement history.

8. Accelerate Closing with Social Proof & Testimonials

How ABM Helps: ABM can gather and curate relevant testimonials, success stories, or case studies from similar accounts in the same industry, vertical or with similar pain points.
Sales Impact: Sales teams can use this social proof to build credibility and trust with key decision-makers at the target account. Showing how others in their position found success with your solution can push the account toward a decision.

9. Nurture Existing Accounts for Upselling and Cross-Selling

How ABM Helps: ABM isn’t just about lead generation—it’s also about account retention and growth. For existing customers, ABM can continue to engage with targeted campaigns that promote additional products or features based on the customer’s current usage and behaviour.
Sales Impact: Sales teams can be supported with ongoing insights that indicate when and how existing accounts are ripe for upselling or cross-selling opportunities, making it easier to expand revenue from the accounts they’re already working with.

10. Increase Collaboration and Feedback Loops

How ABM Helps: ABM fosters communication between the marketing and sales teams. With ABM, marketing gets direct feedback from sales about which tactics are working, which content is effective, and which accounts are engaging.
Sales Impact: This feedback loop allows sales teams to quickly get the resources and adjustments they need from marketing. If a certain type of content or outreach is resonating, marketing can adjust and scale it to help support sales efforts more effectively.

Summary

No single factor guarantees successful alignment between sales and marketing—not lead scoring, shared goals, or anything else. The focus of your business should be generating revenue; therefore, emphasising and prioritising collaboration on activities that drive sales is crucial. This is why ABM can be a hugely successful strategy for B2B organisations that effectively align ABM with ABS strategies.

ABM supports ABS by equipping sales teams with targeted content, deep account insights, real-time engagement data, and a streamlined process for account handoffs.

ABM doesn't need to reinvent the wheel regarding account targeting but works in tandem with sales to enhance and accelerate its efforts.

By ensuring sales teams have the right information, resources, and support, ABM helps them close deals more efficiently and effectively.