Report: High-Performing Marketers Frequently Collaborate with Sales

New research indicates that more high-performing marketers are teaming up with sales to accomplish their shared objectives.

The “State of Marketing” report from Salesforce recently discovered that 91 percent of high-performing marketers agree that marketing and sales share common goals and metrics. Approximately 91 percent of high-performing marketers also believe that marketing and sales are empowered to collaborate at their companies.

According to the report, high-performing marketing leaders are those who are extremely satisfied with the current outcomes realized as a direct result of their company’s marketing investment, as well as their overall marketing performance compared to their competitors.

“Winning marketing teams keep close tabs on their sales counterparts’ needs, and value two-way communication,” wrote the authors of the report. High performers are 2.2x more likely than underperformers to say marketing consistently provides sales with quality leads — and 2.1x more likely to say sales regularly provides key insights that shape marketing efforts.”

As a result of their collaboration, 89 percent of high-performing marketers say they understand what their sales team needs to succeed.

Marketing Effectiveness and Sales Alignment

Previous research also suggests that marketing strategy success may be linked to sales and marketing alignment.

In the “2017 State of Inbound” report from HubSpot, most marketers (61 percent) said they believe that their organization’s marketing strategy is effective. Out of these respondents, 81 percent said that their sales and marketing teams were tightly aligned. Approximately 66 percent of generally aligned respondents said the same.

Overall, 44 percent of marketers said that their marketing team was generally aligned with sales. Twenty-two percent claimed that they were tightly aligned.

In terms of marketing strategy effectiveness, 61 percent of managers thought their existing plans were efficient. About 69 percent of C-level marketers said the same, while 68 percent of vice presidents/directors agreed.