Ebook the essentials of sales and marketing alignment

d!NK–Empoweringyoursalesforcetooutperformd!NK–EmpoweringyoursalesforcetooutperformTheessentialsofSales&Marketingalignment
Encourage your teams for
more business!
The essentials of
Sales &
Marketing
Alignment
Visit us at dink.eu
d!NK – empowering your sales force to outperform

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TheessentialsofSales&Marketingalignment
“Investing in better and more useful
technologies is critical for sales to move
more quickly and effectively on the leads
that marketing can uncover”
-Jenny Cermak (McKinsey & Company)
Put the “and” back in Sales and Marketing.
“ Companies with ‘dynamic, adaptable
sales & marketing processes’ reported an
average of 10% more sales people on-
quota compared to other companies ”
- CSO insights
“84% of best in class companies choose to
give marketing access to the CRM ”
- Aberdeen.com 1

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About the author
Kenny is Marketing manager at d!NK. He joined the
company in its early days. Passionate about
marketing and digital communication, Kenny keeps
the pulse on d!NK’s market. He is in daily contact with
d!NK’s customers and prospects to understand their
sales interactions and detect opportunities for d!NK
to improve the sales effectiveness. Kenny translates
this knowledge into the evolution of the d!NK product
and is a profilic contributor to blog posts and demos
that demonstrate the value of d!NK.
An enterpreneur at heart, Kenny founded his
webdesign agency in 2006 while still at school.
2

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Speak the same language
3. The Sales & Marketing Waterfall
4. Measure & optimize
5. How d!NK can help
6. Get in touch
3

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1
Introduction
4

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Why should you read this?
This eBook will guide you through the essentials of aligning
sales and marketing. It is never easy to create alignment
between these two planets. Believe me, I know it’s a true
challenge.
Most part of this eBook is written from own experience,
summarized to the true essential and written down for
everyone who has an interest in this matter.
Why should you introduce this in your
company?
What I have experienced is that a lot of leads are lost
because of poor communication. Introducing a clear
alignment can help to reduce the loss of important leads
and help both sales and marketing to work together.
5
Introduction
Think about leads and how they’re treated in your company. If
sales and marketing are not aligned, how can you ensure a
seamless buying experience?

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2
Speak the same
language
6

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7
Are the leads any good?
A business drives on leads.
However, not all leads are equal. Sales people know well
that a warm lead translates into business, a cold lead is a
first step in a long journey to revenue and that interest is
often mistaken for willingness to buy.
Lead qualification is about assessing if an interested lead
translates into willingness to buy.
So it’s very important that both sides have the same
perspective when it comes to “a lead” and when dealing with
critical concepts like a “sales-ready lead”.
“These are the Glengarry leads, and to you they are gold.
But you don’t get them. Why? Because giving them to
you is like trowing them away. They’re for closers only!”
Quote from the movie: Glengarry Glenn Ross
Speak the same language
”38% of CMOs say that aligning and integrating sales &
marketing is a top priority for 2014” (CMO Council)

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Start by asking both teams to answer the following
questions:
• What is a qualified lead?
• What are the scoring rules for a qualified lead?
• How do they define the various stages for developing
leads?
Often the sales team and marketing team will answer
these questions in very different ways, but discussion
will show that a marketing lead and a sales lead are
actually two sides of the same (golden) coin.
8
At d!NK we use S.C.O.T.S.M.A.N to qualify leads.
These 8 criteria will determine the quality of any
lead. Discover more …

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9
Single customer picture.
Make sure both teams are on the same page when talking
about “a customer”. To achieve this, stick the marketing and
sales heads together and gather information from own
experience (=common interests).
The mutual insight allows your marketing and sales teams to
share a common definition of your “ideal customer” and
makes it easier to create campaigns around common goals.
Define the goals and stick to it. You are now targeting
specific customers!
Examples of common goals:
• Commission on the amount of qualified leads and the
amount of deals closed
• Monthly sales competitions
• Bonusses when hit ratio rises
• Faster lead handling
• More online demonstrations

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10
Customer Dynamics terminology.
Now that both teams have the same perspective of
customers at various stages of engagement, continue with
other common definitions to make sure your communication
proceeds effectively.
Consider the following definitions to make sure sales and
marketing are on the same page:
• Lead Scoring: Define what actions or behaviors
determine the quality of a lead. This can be accomplished
with lead scoring tools that assign points for lead
engagement in online and offline touch points.
• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL): When marketing
passes over leads to sales, both teams need to agree on
the scoring criteria to qualify as MQL. Processes need to
be put in place to make sure these leads are passed on to
sales with all information on previous engagement.
• Sales Qualified Leads (SQL): Assign the right definition of
a SQL and what determines this. Know what actions are to
be taken when a lead is marked as sales qualified.
• Opportunity: Define the different stages of an opportunity
and when sales can declare one. Define the follow-up
procedure so it becomes clear for everyone how to handle
opportunities.

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3
Communication
is key
11

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Communication is key
12
The importance of communication.
Now both teams have the right terminology and
understanding. Now you need to make sure there is a
good communication between sales and marketing.
This is extremely important when it comes to the next
phase of alignment: Closed Loop Reporting.
Closed Loop Reporting.
Closed Loop Reporting is the way sales and marketing
deal with the conversion process from an unknown
visitor to a sale, based on statistical data.
Think about the following:
When your sales team receives a lead from marketing,
it’s important for sales to communicate to marketing
how the process of turning the lead into a sale went.
By doing this marketing can identify the best lead
source and use it more frequently in online campaigns.
Equally important is communication about a lead that
did not convert into a sale. This is a good opportunity for
marketing to investigate the context and learn to
improve the conversion rate.

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13

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4
The Sales &
Marketing
Waterfall
14

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The Sales & Marketing waterfall
15
Define the S&M Waterfall.
It often appears to be a problem: sales and marketing
organizations are not using the same lead pipeline.
Non-aligned lead pipelines keep sales and marketing on
their own planet.
Make sure you set up a pipeline that fits both worlds.
It all starts with a visitor using multiple marketing channels such
as: inquiries, registrations, downloads, etc. These contacts are
converted to marketing leads. If the lead is qualified, it can be
turned directly into a sales qualified lead, or a SQL. If more
information is needed, the lead will go into a lead nurturing
programme.
Whenever sales has the concrete possibilities and requests of
the SQL, they will create an opportunity for them, which
hopefully will lead to sales.

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16
Conclusion
With a single pipeline, sales and marketing understand
how each stage in the process works and why each is
important to the business.
d!NK can help businesses to accomplish this S&M
waterfall by enabling both sides to have greater visibility
into each others world.
The Sales & Marketing waterfall

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5
Measure &
optimize
17

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Measure & optimize
18
The trickiest part
Now you know how to align your sales and marketing
teams. The next and last step is to guarantee this alignment.
Commonly defined agreements (CDA) help to define the
relationship between your sales and marketing
organizations. These agreements will hold both sides
accountable for their commitments, which will be the
trickiest part of the whole process.
Setting up CDAs.
The easiest way is to begin with a set of agreed-upon
performance metrics. This can be anything you want, for
example:
• Acceptable follow-up delay
• Acceptable conversion percentages
• Quantify minimum number of monthly leads
Next, set up a series of targets for both sides, this helps you
to guarantee the alignment without needing to interfere
every week.

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19
• Define common targets / goals: Important is to measure
both teams on the same metric.
• For example: if you measure marketing on the number of MQL
they provide to sales, you should measure the MQL sales
turned into customers as well.
This will tell you the number of leads marketing is passing over
and their quality.
• Define common benefits: Point out the benefits the
teams have by communicating with each other and make
clear what could be achieved if sales talked to marketing
after a sale has been made
• For example: faster conversion rates, better insights that lead
to better results.
• Define occasional (short) meetings: make sure you plan
occasional meetings with both teams to discuss what
kind of content they like or missing, what information they
should give or even to regain the confidence in the
aligning process.
Follow up, review & refine.
Sales and marketing alignment is a lifetime process for any
organization. Take into account that you’ll need to follow up
on initiatives, track progress, organize occasional meetings
with both teams, to ensure continuous improvement.
With an emphasis on shared performance, benefits and
metrics, your sales and marketing teams will be more
motivated and have a better understanding of each others
world to build upon their progress.
Follow up & optimize

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6
How d!NK can
help
20

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21
With d!NK you can create tools for enabling sales and
marketing alignment.
Better leads = more money
Marketing creates sales tools which sales loves to use.
When the focus of sales tools is on interactivity and
feedback, marketing gets instant insight from the field.
We’ll illustrate 4 tools that result in a more efficient marketing
team and a more productive salesteam.
sales tools
scoring tools training tools
administrative tools
“Investing in better and more useful technologies is critical
for sales to move more quickly and effectively on the leads
that marketing can uncover” - Jenny Cermak (McKinsey & Company)
How d!NK can help

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 Gather data and integrate with your CRM system
 Interact with your customers
 Automatic generation of customer reports
 Sign contracts on the spot
Examples of mobile sales tools:
- Survey tools
- Lead qualification tools
- Pitchbooks with process flows
- Simulators / calculators
22
Salestools
Create your ownsalestoolstoget more insightinthesales
conversation.
How d!NK can help
Increase your Sales Qualified Leads

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 Generate leads on events
 Automatic creation of order forms
 Errorless and hassle-free ordering
 Automatic creation of visit reports
Examples of administrative tools:
- Inventory counting
- Order intake tools
- Prestation & service tools
23
Administrativetools
Goneare thedays oflateeveningreports.Withd!NK youcancreate
forms forstreamlining customer processes and toolsforautomated
ordering and reporting.
Improve your administration
How d!NK can help

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 Qualify your customers during the sales conversation
 Gather online and offline data
 View and mail content straight from the app
Examples of mobile scoring tools:
- Lead scoring tools
- Customer scoring tools
- Product & training evaluation
24
Scoringtools
Structuredscoring reducesreporting time and createsa common
languagetoqualifycustomers.
Improve the way you qualify leads
How d!NK can help

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 Train and coach your team(s) wherever you are
 Set up a library of training tools
 Get better indication of your teams’ performance
 Set up onboarding programmes for new employees
Examples of mobile training tools:
- Evaluation and benchmark tools
- Personal development/achievement tools
- Knowledge portal
25
Training tools
Training toolscanhelp youtogetgreat insightsinthe knowledgeof
your team.Whetheritis fornewemployees, newproductsor evento
evaluatetrainers.
Increase your team’s performance
How d!NK can help

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26
No need to relearn. Create those sales tools straight from
PowerPoint with the d!NK PowerPoint Plugin, and enable
your sales people with the right tools to engage customers,
while collecting market insight.
Usefull tips & tricks from our blog:
6 ways to become a sales app rockstar
10 tools to improve the sales conversation
Get started right away
Ready to rock?

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7
Get in touch
27

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Get in touch with us!
We’d be happy to further share our experience,
On our website you find more examples of interactive
sales tools that lead to a better sales and marketing
alignment
28
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