What you need to know:

• Despite the pervasiveness of digital channels, B2B sales teams still heavily rely on traditional outbound sales methods to generate leads.
• This is even true though the buying journey has changed significantly, with 60 per cent of B2B buying journeys now starting online.
• A new report from Arktic Fox suggests that the path to B2B sales success is to embrace customer-centric strategies and leverage initiatives such as Account Based Marketing to prioritise and target prospects. 
• Cue marketing, and in fact half of the sales leaders Arktic Fox spoke with gave their marketing colleagues a five out of five rating when it came to the effectiveness of their working relationships.
• However, the coin-toss result also revealed that 50 per cent of sales leaders rated their relationship as neutral or worse.
• In particular, sales leaders felt marketers lacked an adequate understanding of customers.
• However, the sales leaders Mi3 spoke with also recognised the pressures upon marketing – "they are pulled from pillar to post" – and there was much more support for investment in brand activities than marketers might otherwise have expected.

A new study by Arktic Fox has revealed that although digital is pervasive, sales teams still heavily rely on traditional outbound sales methods to generate leads, even though 60 per cent of buyers now initiate their purchasing journey online. 

According to Arktic Fox co-founder and co-author of the report Petra Sprekos, "More successful sales leaders and B2B sellers are embracing customer-centric strategies and leveraging initiatives such as Account Based Marketing to more effectively prioritise and target prospects."

She said that in today’s landscape, harnessing data and analytics is paramount for informed decision-making, optimising customer experiences, and enabling personalisation. "Sales leaders expressed the importance of insights to demonstrate value to customers with more than one in five highlighting the need to improve in this area," according to the report.

"As the role of sales representative in the selling process is evolving as a result of digital, there's a growing emphasis on enhancing sales team literacy in data, digital tools, business acumen, and foundational selling skills. "

However, for marketers, the Sales in Focus 2024 report  has some important lessons.

First the good news. Half of the respondents rated the working relationship between sales and marketing as highly effective, rating it five out of five. However, that still left 50 per cent of sales leaders feeling like their working relationship with marketing is neutral – or worse.

It's also pretty damning that many sales leaders feel that marketing has an inadequate understanding of the customer. That in turn makes it difficult for marketers to deliver against some key sales expectations, including:

• Identifying and focusing on the initiatives that will materially shift the dial.
• Undertaking effective lead generation and ABM initiatives that deliver high-quality leads.
• Developing effective communications and initiatives that cut through and will connect with the audience.  

According to Sprekos, who will discuss the insights from the report at the B2B digisalesFEST '24 in May, "Friction persists between sales and marketing teams. Closer alignment between these functions is critical for driving revenue growth, delivering a seamless buyer experience, and maximising ROI. "

That lack of alignment can fuel distrust and as a consequence, sales will start to take matters into their own hands executing marketing tasks independently to ensure alignment with their sales objectives.

The reports suggest this siloed approach not only undermines the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing initiatives but also detracts from sales professionals' primary focus on closing deals and nurturing customer relationships.

"The effectiveness of marketing in devising compelling campaigns and experience strategies heavily relies on their deep understanding of the target audience's needs, preferences, and behaviours. The traditional route to market has changed, and the buyer is spending an enormous amount of time researching up front.

"It's crucial for businesses to ensure they are effectively reaching and engaging buyers during this crucial phase."

Sales leaders Mi3 spoke with confirmed their own experiences echoed many of the findings of Sales in Focus 2024. But there was also a recognition of the pressures faced by marketers.

Sound familiar?

In many ways, the challenges faced by sales and marketing leaders closely align, even if sometimes the teams do not.

Take the view of Daniel Lodge, recently appointed as VP APAC for Seismic, who has two decades of sales and management experience in the hyper-competitive tech sector under his belt. Like the sales leaders surveyed by Arktic Fox, Lodge called out the need to understand the changing nature of how B2B buyers behave as a key strategic sale priority.

“One of the key priorities for us is evolving with this shifting market. So we've got that economic uncertainty hanging over our heads. But I think it's more about the rise of the informed buyer, and changing buyer preferences,” Lodge told Mi3.

Buyers are much more informed in the process, and there’s a need to service “all the rooms in the house” from a sales perspective, he added.

Marketing faces the same daunting task.

“We need to make sure we can cut through that noise because everyone seems to want to want a piece of it because budgets are tougher to get hold of. There are more stakeholders involved.”

The changing nature of B2B buying has had another impact, according to Nick Flood, National Sales Director - Direct and Independent Agency, ARN.  He has watched as the expectations on his colleagues in marketing have expanded.

“We are seeing marketers holding more and more accountability on sales results and ROI with their marketing budgets.”

In some categories, says Flood, this has led to a shift to digital solutions, such as search, due to the need for marketers to demonstrate the effectiveness of their work.  

And while many marketers may feel that sales too often have short-term a focus on the next quarterly number, Flood told Mi3, "They are also aware of the need for a business to drive long-term brand awareness."

Of course, it helps that as a media executive, Flood operates in a world of brands. “Some of the strongest brands in the market, with the highest recall, have built that awareness through audio branding, using impactful creative to cement their place in the minds of their current and prospective consumers.”

Another common complaint B2B marketer have expressed to Mi3 is that sales lacks regard for building long-term awareness. While no doubt true in some cases, it’s not universal based on the conversations Mi3 had with a range of sales leaders across multiple sectors.

Another area where sales and marketing leaders sing from the same hymn book is the matter of alignment. And there’s sympathy for the different pressures marketers face.

Louisa Day, General Manager Park Success at Big4 Holiday Parks, says her sales team often expresses a desire for marketers to get out and meet the Parks that list on BIG4.com.au and their guests. BIG4.com.au list both BIG4 branded independently owned parks as well as Partner Parks which are often owned by large corporate partners.  In that context she says, "The job of marketing is to promote the brand." and understand the park customer so as to attract qualified ‘holiday park’ customers to BIG4.com.au

In some cases, such as with Jason Mackenzie, the recently appointed National Sales and Marketing Manager, Nolan Group, responsibility for sales and marketing sits under a single reporting line, offering a greater insight to the challenges the marketers face – and none of the attendant turf wars.

“Marketing gets pulled from pillar to post in terms of all the things that the business wants to do.”

McKenzie is only a few weeks into his role and he readily acknowledges sales and marketing need a more symbiotic relationship.

“I've worked in organisations where it's been quite seamless. And by that what I mean is that there is a known and understood and visible plan, which may be seasonally-based, it might be campaign-based, but there is a plan that both the sales and marketing function understands is in play. Each understands the marketing component and then the sales plan follows in behind that.”

That’s the goal he has in mind for in his new role where he oversees both functions.

"So what is it we're telling and talking to the market about? What is the call to action? What do we expect from that activity, from the sales results? And then assessment and understanding as to the performance of that.”

McKenzie's goal is to have a much clearer view of matters such as return on investment and return on the activity.

Measures like open rates and click-throughs are useful, he says "But really, we're about sales. What's the dollar result?"

Misalignment

As Mi3 has reported in the past, technology sales is an area where the misalignment between sales and marketing can be especially acute as international brands startup and then attempt to scale up their local operations. Marketers have told Mi3 that in these cases in particular sales has an outsized voice that often drowns out arguments around brand.

It's an issue Peter Bray the former regional vice president of sales at Impact.com who is about to begin a new role, is familiar with, although it's not necessarily his experience.

According to Bray, “Typically I’ve been charged with scaling sales, building a sales organisation, finding product-market fit. That’s very different than a lot of the sales or organisations where you're talking about a more established sales and marketing function.”

For that reason, Bray says he has been deeply entwined with marketing from day one, “Within all these organisations, there's probably a good crossover.”

In those early days, as a business scales, there is a lot of emphasis placed on acquiring new customer logos. 

“When you're a new business, when you’re in a new market, even if you've got international presence, you still have to find that local product-market fit. The most strategic priority is often to just acquire. Not always at all costs – but you've just got to get a couple of customers on the books,” he says.

“When you're scaling an organisation in the market, whether you have the support or not on the ground, the goal is to turn those customers into the biggest possible advocates. At Impact.com, for example, we had this thing that we called 'creating irrational love'. Because if the customers love you, they end up being your biggest advocates, they end up being the ones that will go and do the business development for you.”

Better case scenarios

The Sales in Focus 2024 report argues that by leveraging their understanding of customer needs and market trends, marketers can provide sales professionals with valuable insights and differentiated offerings that resonate with the target audience.

Per the report: "This collaborative approach ensures that sales teams are equipped to deliver unique value propositions and address customer pain points effectively, thereby enhancing the overall sales process and driving sustainable growth."

Nicole Triandos, Head of Strategic Partnerships & Enablement, Broker Distribution, NAB, and a former marketer has seen first hand the benefits of collaboration.

She also understands that the performance of sales and marketing are tied to each other's success.

"There's been a lot of work on data integrity and when we talk with our marketing teams around activity I am a bit different because I used to be a marketer."

Sales need to be respectful of the fact that marketing helps ring up sales, she says.

"I know what our role is, and what their role is – but the magic happens when we bring them together."

Triandos' background in marketing has also imbued in her a need to measure the impact of activity, and that helps demonstrate the symbiotic nature of the relationship. "I always say to the sales leaders, 'Guy's if we can't measure these, there's not going to be any marketing budget this year for this activity.'" 

Or, as the report itself concludes, "By working together, sales and marketing can develop a shared understanding of the customer journey, enabling them to align strategies and efforts more effectively."

We will examine the report's findings on sales technology next week.