In the context of B2B sales, while content generated by marketers is of great importance for the sales of any company, it is common for it to be wasted. In fact, many studies show that the relationship between the marketing and sales teams is not always as fluid as it should be.

On the one hand, according to Dragon Search Marketing, “61% of consumers are influenced by personalised content”. However, there are studies that show only 20% of the content generated by marketing is used by the sales team.

For the content created by marketers to be used, it is essential that it responds to what salespeople really want and need. In other words, alignment between marketing and sales should be a priority for all companies when it comes to attracting new customers.

The problem is that both departments often focus on the common goal (selling more), but without this being accompanied by a joint strategy.

Collaborative creation

A good solution for marketing to generate content that the sales team loves (and therefore uses for sales) is for there to be direct collaboration between the departments, whether on an ongoing basis or through occasional meetings.

Both departments often work independently and communication is minimal. However, content could clearly benefit from working together:

A / How marketing can help sales:

• Go deeper into the specific characteristics of the content to know how to get more out of it in sales interactions
• Inform about the creative concept of the content, which could be an attractive feature for the customer
• Help sales convey the brand image that the company wants to project in sales interactions

B / How sales can help marketing:

• Help to understand the characteristics and particularities of each product for the creation of specific content
• Inform about the content that works best in personal sales interactions
• Share interesting information about customers that helps marketing offer a personalised experience in its different areas of activity

In general, it will always be positive for marketers' creative process to be able to work with as much information as possible about sales processes and the effectiveness of the content already in use.

How to resolve the disconnect between teams?

The first step to improving alignment between marketers and the sales team is for marketing to be able to access important data about the sales team's sales interactions.

In this sense, a good solution for the company would be committing to an integrated Sales Enablement platform.

A platform integrated with other company tools, accessible to the different departments, allows a fluid exchange of information between the sales and marketing team, which could also be reviewed by senior management for business decision-making.

Thanks to new digital technologies, the marketing team can design effective content, based on real data about what works best during sales interactions. In turn, the sales team can benefit from a platform that allows content to be shown to be organised effectively.

Furthermore, through the application of AI systems it is possible to hyper-automate data analysis, so that the marketing decision-making process can be faster and safer.