Smarketing – The Fusion of Sales and Marketing to Increase Revenue
Last update: 22 July 2021 at 11:45 am
5.00/5Sales and marketing are said to not get along well. The marketing department develops great, unique ideas, but according to sales, they are unrealistic and difficult to implement. Smarketing closes exactly this gap between the sales department and the marketing team.
If both work hand in hand, this can only be to your company’s advantage. Sales figures rise and your company increases its level of awareness. We show you here how you can skillfully combine these two departments.
What is Smarketing?
Smarketing is the fusion of marketing and sales. Only with close cooperation can sales be increased for the company.
The task of marketing is the analysis of the market and the acquisition of possible customers. A wide variety of marketing strategies are used here that range from optimisations in SEO and SEA to active online advertising campaigns on search engine results pages and social media platforms as well as e-mail campaigns.
The sales department is responsible for the actual turnover of the services and products. Now, targeted and individual offers can be presented to the followers.
What are the differences between marketing and sales?
Both areas, marketing, and sales deal intensively with the company’s product. However, the perspectives and the contact with the customers are quite different.
Characteristics of marketing
With the help of marketing, a product is designed to suit the market. How is the customer reached and which communication channels can be used to win new customers?
In the past, advertising banners, TV commercials, or posters were used, a rather one-sided form of communication. With the new media and social media platforms, things have changed here. Customers now react directly to commercials and advertisements, leave comments, and like or dislike new publications.
Characteristics of distribution and sales
The area of activity of the sales department is the sale, turnover of the products or services. This department is in direct contact with the customer. Communication is two-way. The sales staff can quickly receive feedback and take up suggestions from the customer.
Increase sales figures with smarketing
The strict separation of sales and marketing can hardly be maintained in today’s business world. There is strong competition in the markets.
Many products are offered in similar variations by different companies. Now it depends on good cooperation between these two departments to make the company’s own product known.
Marketing is increasingly taking the lead in this. Price ranges and target groups can be defined much better with modern tools. Search engine analysis tools, for example, can be used to filter out the customer group and determine their purchasing power.
This information is important and can determine the success of a product. Sales can use these details to offer the products in a user- and target group-oriented way.
Tips that make it easy to create a sales strategy
A sales strategy provides your sales department staff with a guideline. Here we show you which aspects are crucial for a successful sales strategy.
Understanding buyers and buying behaviour
The buyer class has emancipated itself greatly in recent years. More than half of the customers prefer to gather information about a product themselves rather than being advised by a sales representative.
The internet is filled with reviews and tests on a wide variety of products and services. It has become easy to be well informed. Here it is important that the sales team is equipped with valuable information on lifecycle marketing for customers that is of real interest to the customers. Only then will the help and advice of a sales assistant be seen as useful.
Define the target group
Before you implement a new strategy or start marketing in general, it is important to define the target group. This will help you to develop and target your marketing tools. Important aspects here are:
- What age group does my target group comprise?
- When do the potential customers surf the Internet?
- Is the target group local and if so, where?
- How strong is the purchasing power?
Orient sales channels to the target group
Based on the target group defined in this way, you can now develop an efficient strategy that, on the one hand, adapts the advertising material to the consumer and, on the other hand, chooses the right distribution channels.
For example, young people react much more actively to commercials or ads placed on social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook. Corporate customers can be crystallised with IP tracking and can be addressed with direct mailing.
Increasing globalisation and digitalisation allow marketers to come into contact with customers worldwide. This is where analytics become important, for example to localise customers via geofencing and to determine at what time they move on the different digital channels.
IP tracking in smarketing
While in regular marketing strategies the customer himself often has to take the first step for the company to notice his interest, there is a completely different system behind working with IP tracking. Here, a pixel is left on the website. This allows a comparison with public databases, which assigns the previously anonymous visitor to a company.
Unlike in the private sector, almost all companies have fixed IP addresses that do not change. These reveal a lot of valuable information such as company size, number of employees, and industry. Interesting data that you can now incorporate into active customer acquisition and marketing strategy.
Geofencing and tracking for the localisation of digital data
Everyone leaves traces when surfing the internet, which can be registered and analysed with the help of various tools. In this way, advertisers receive, for example, the following information about those who visit their website:
- Which page is visited?
- From where is a particular web page accessed?
- How much time does the visitor stay on the website?
- When is a purchase made?
- Does the user sign up for a newsletter?
- On which page does the visitor exit?
The digital tools can now define a target group based on this data. Cookies are usually used for these purposes. However, please note that you have to inform the private user about the use of certain cookies. Especially in the case of localisation, visitors must agree and you must point out the right to object.
Consider flexible distribution strategies
In your target group analysis, you may find that there is strong interest in your product not only in the United States. But how can sales reach all customers without straining the budget too much? Here, different elements of sales can be combined.
In the United States, you may already have a good distribution structure with retailers or your own shops. But you also want to conquer the rest of the North American and European markets. In order to save costs here, it may be more worthwhile to find a strong distribution partner and expand online trading.
If you would like to hear the advice of experts before making a decision or if you would like to outsource the strategy development, there are some qualified agencies that will be happy to assist you. Often with years of experience and always up to date, they develop innovatively and individually adapted sales strategies and marketing tools.
Optimal marketing tools for sales
It has been proven that:
only 65% of the content created by the marketing department is used by the sales team
There is a lot of room for improvement here. The strict boundary between sales and marketing must be blurred. The creative heads in marketing should regard the sales people as their first customers. Here they can already test which contents and which promotional items work and which tend to attract less attention.
For an even more efficient development of new promotional items and campaigns, it is advisable to ask for the opinion of the sales department already in the idea generation phase. The exchange of information is valuable and can generate completely new innovative approaches that increase awareness and sales.
Analysis, evaluation, and optimisation
The best way to determine whether an advertising campaign or strategy is successful is to conduct a thorough analysis. Special tools from search engines or social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram can help.
Here, for example, you can measure and evaluate the click-through and conversion rates for digital advertising campaigns. The use of content and its effectiveness should be considered in every phase of the sales cycle. This is the only way to find out which resources resonate with customers and which only cost money.
When evaluating analogue actions such as promotions, discount cards, or direct mail, the sales department can often provide information on whether these actions result in more customers. Again, cross-functional collaboration should take place to generate as much valuable information as possible.
Smarketing Conclusion
Increasing digitalisation and globalisation in a wide range of industries demand new, modern and innovative sales concepts. Those who insist on rigid boundaries between marketing and sales in their corporate structure could have to deal with some sales problems in the future.
Smarketing is becoming more and more important, the connection between marketing and sales. The strength of each department should be taken into account in smarketing measures in order to develop effective and original advertising campaigns and marketing strategies.
This includes an extensive analysis of existing customers and new possible target groups. Online tools provided by search engines or offered by independent service providers support this analysis. Here you can check the success of your smarketing actions. Based on these results and the valuable information that the sales department can provide, changes and optimisations can be made. Use the advantages of a flexible smarketing area for more success of your company.
