Aligning Sales & Marketing - An Essential, Overlooked Key to Unlocking Value

26 Apr, 2024

It may seem that aligning functions like sales and marketing is a no brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many organisations simply don’t do it. The result, believes Patrick Janssen, Partner Marketing Manager at Cisco, is lowering creative effectiveness, in the latest episode of MAD//Fest's partner podcast, Shiny New Object.

With a 20+ year experience in marketing for the IT industry, Patrick Janssen has learnt the importance of an essential, yet often overlooked element - that sales and marketing need to be in alignment for both functions to work well.

Stakeholder Relevance Is Key

Whatever you’re presenting internally, Patrick has learnt the hard way that it needs to be 100% relevant to your stakeholders’ jobs and priorities. There is no point talking to the C-suite about endless data points if they don’t translate into why these are relevant to them. Instead, “take the time to translate your message in terms of relevance for your stakeholders.”

Aligning Strategies for Effective Execution
Aligning sales and marketing objectives, KPIs, buyer personas and strategies is essential for effective campaign execution. This ensures all teams are working towards the same goals. “It’s a no brainer, and sales and marketing peers agree it’s the way to go, but hardly any of them do so.”

Improving Collaboration through Alignment

Patrick's focus on sales and marketing alignment aims to improve collaboration so marketing can truly function as a business partner, not just another department that needs to be worked with. As he puts it: “Be a growth driver, be a business partner instead of just a marketer that the rest of the organisation needs to collaborate with.”

The host of the Shiny New Object podcast is Tom Ollerton, founder of Automated Creative.