Define your own Smarketing strategy
To optimize the turnover of your business, you can in particular align your marketing and commercial teams. Nevertheless, a Smarketing strategy is not done with a magic wand. To get there, you must, among other things, define and implement an effective strategy. How ? This is what we will see in this article.
You've probably heard of Smarketing strategy , the practice of making your commercial and marketing poles collaborate. This technique is on the rise since it has already enabled several companies to cross a new level. It will offer you a harmonization between your sellers and your marketers . This will streamline your customers' purchasing journey, which will obviously boost your turnover. However, to make a Smarketing strategy profitable, there is no boat plan to follow. You should rather bet on an approach according to your BtoB , but also your targets. Focus on the points to be adopted to define your own strategy.
Steps for an effective marketing strategy
In order to define your own strategy, you need to follow these few steps. They will allow your teams to be more easily aligned and therefore more efficient.
Step 1: Define your Buyer Persona for a Smarketing strategy
What’s the best way to make your next product or service profitable? Among the criteria, your salespeople and your marketers must be on the same wavelength. To do this, these two departments must first agree on the ideal customer: the buyer persona.
Concretely, this is the profile for whom your offer is made, the one who will say that what you are offering is made especially for them. In inbound marketing , you must target a certain category of prospects in particular. It will be up to you to identify it so that the company does not become scattered.
Defining your buyer persona will allow you to orient your entire strategy around it. Indeed, without it, your two departments may have conflicting visions of the ideal buyer, which will distort the information you have in hand. Indeed, if you do not determine this persona, each department will have different criteria to define it. It will be up to you to promote the perfect customer.
For this, the best alternative would be to carry out joint training. The latter will aim to clarify what are the important data to take into account for your two divisions. They will thus have notions and, above all, visions that agree. Once this is understood by both your salespeople and your marketers, you can then move on to the next point.
Step 2: Set Smart Goals
A Smarketing strategy is not only the merger of "Sales" and "Marketing". It also refers to another word: smart. To take advantage of the advantages of this strategy, you must then set goals that respect the Smart method, that is to say:
*Specific: That they do not fall into the trap of generalization. Your goals must be specific.
*Measurable: encrypted data will be necessary to measure the effectiveness of action plans
*Achievable: Goals that are too ambitious will lower the motivation of your employees.
*Realistic: don't ask for the impossible from your services
*Temporary: Determine a deadline for all your objectives in order to have an overview in hindsight.
Once this is done, you can begin to implement your action plans based on these criteria.
The performance indicators that are now almost identical can be used better because there will be better understanding between your two departments.
Step 3: Develop a trust contract
You now have an ideal client as well as goals that you have set for yourself. For its implementation to go smoothly, you will need to ensure communication between your sales teams and your marketing team. The two will have to work hand in hand and must agree on a contract of trust. Also called SLA or Service Level Agreement, this agreement will explain the roles and expectations of each person.
With SLA, adopting a relevant lead scoring will help you define your own Smarketing strategy. Concretely, the two departments will set the number of prospects to give to the sellers. The latter will also have an obligation of result and convert a certain amount of leads .
Information concerning the responsibilities of each division will then be contained in the trust contract. This way, your teams will no longer blame each other. This, since each of them will be aware of what the other must do to achieve their objectives.
Step 4: Use automated tools
A Smarketing strategy is not only a story of two complementary departments that join their forces. It is also an opportunity to simplify your working methods. To do this, you need to bet on software. Your CRMs will have to contain information included by all. You can also use Marketing Automation tools , in order to program in advance and streamline repetitive tasks.
With these tools, you will be able to make more use of the results you have available. This will save you significant time. Aided by this quantifiable data, your efficiency rate will also increase. Indeed, it is a good thing that the two poles get along and communicate with each other, but it is better to have tools to facilitate decision-making.
By automating your processes, you will even have benefits that go beyond the sale-marketing duo in the sense of the conversion of leads . Indeed, departments such as the after-sales service and the back office could very well take advantage of the KPIs that you will drive. Ultimately, this will help the whole business to develop and thus boost its turnover.
Step 5: Overuse Feedback
Finally, an effective smarting strategy is perfected thanks to the feedback, suddenly do not deprive yourself. On the contrary, it is necessary to abuse it. This will allow the whole business to get out of it since communication is essential throughout the purchase cycle. It helps to analyze the results. Thus, KPIs can be drilled more easily and more transparent.
You must then set up periodic meetings between your marketing and sales service. These provide visibility of the objectives that have been achieved, but also performance indicators to improve. The more briefs you make, the better you will be able to adapt your strategy according to the events.
For example, you can organize interviews at the start of the month to confirm the expectations of each party. 2 weeks later you will already have an idea of the KPIs in the gap and what each department will be able to achieve. Finally, at the end of the month, the two departments will be able to discuss all the data through a monthly report. This is just an example, but it's up to you to understand the pace you need for your own strategy. Weekly meetings of a few minutes or periodic updates, it's up to you. The main thing is the transparency of information which is the guarantee of an effective result.
Mistakes to avoid
Now that the different stages to be carried out have been explained, we must also talk about the mistakes not to make. For an effective smarting , pay attention to points that impact the motivation of your employees.
Not taking into account everyone's personalities
Your periodic briefs should be an opportunity to take stock of what is effective, but also of areas for improvement, even on a relational level. However, these meetings must be a means of establishing caring and closed-loop communication. This means that each pole must have the analytical capacity necessary to learn from their mistakes and those of others. Everyone should therefore know how to accept criticism coming from their alter ego.
Avoid any form of one-way communication that could inflame the situation. This since the two services are two sides of the same coin, they have a relatively identical weight. Ego management is required because it is not easy to make two departments work together that have previously been rivals. Remember that a business is several individuals with their own stories and personalities. To thrive, you must take all of these parameters into account.
Pay attention to remuneration
Given that a Smarketing strategy aims to have a transparent strategy, the question of remuneration can arise. Indeed, generally, the sales team is often better lotie in terms of salary than marketers. It is also one of the points of friction between the two. This is likely to reduce the motivation in particular of the marketing team which could feel injured.
You have several solutions such as relatively aligning their salaries or setting more attractive bonuses. The main thing is to make everyone understand that their role is just as important regardless of their services.
Some practical tips to improve your Smarketing strategy
You now know just about the good and bad ways to define your strategy. These few tips will surely help you to perfect your Smarketing strategy approach.
Promote your offers
To streamline your customers' purchase route, learn to enhance your offers. Then take advantage of the information you will get throughout the process to identify the potential markets. Your CRM and your tools give you indices on the purchasing habits of your leads? You can use it to make upsells, upgrades and even further improve their experiences.
Do some team building
Bet on harmony between your sales and marketing services for a Smarketing strategy. To do this, dare to go out of the beaten track and meetings not to finish it. Why not opt for Teambuilding sessions based on games, meetings and relaxation? By spending time together far from the spectrum of work, your employees will find themselves resources and more inspired. Which will be beneficial both for them and for the company.
smarting strategy is therefore mainly based on communication. This will formally identify your Buyer Persona and its expectations in order to optimize your turnover. The SLA contract and the constant dialogue will be useful to better understand the obligations and the KPIs to be piloted. Finally, use and abuse feedback to adapt to the situation. To help you have an optimal strategy that is clean, you can use dedicated tools like Magileads .
