The concept of tying sales and marketing together more closely has been discussed so much it’s become somewhat of a business cliché. It also seems self-evident on the surface; of course you should tie marketing and sales together. Why wouldn’t you?
Yet the reality is that for all the talk, most of the time they’re still worlds apart in most organizations. That can’t continue to happen, especially in a business environment that is far more focused on metrics driven lead generation than softer ”branding” issues.
Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are getting on board with this line of thinking. As noted in my June post on Forrester’s and Heidrick & Struggles’ ”Evolved CMO, 2012” Report, CMOs recognize ”they must tie their marketing plans closer to business results and engage technology and sales peers to create a consolidated vision of how to succeed with customers.”
That’s the what. What everyone seems to be struggling with is the how, and that’s why I wanted to share DemandGen Report’s 2012 Sales and Marketing Integration Awards. The top 10 winning organizations share their approach to integrating marketing and sales processes, detailing the processes, technology and results, many with significant ROI.
Link to The 2012 Sales And Marketing Integration Award Report from G3 Communications
Cisco, Internap, Rubbermaid, and HubSpot are among the 18 award winners, two of whom are well represented within MENG. I recently spoke with the liaison for a 2012 winner, Sangram Vajre, Director of Demand Generation at Internap Network Services Corporation, a provider of intelligent IT infrastructure services. He mentioned that Internap’s initiative to unite sales and marketing began by leaving egos and territories at the door and instead working to find common ground that would actually help the company achieve its business objectives.
”One of the first things we did was get marketing and sales to agree to the same