Report: Only 45% of All Marketers Say They ‘Somewhat’ Align with Sales on Key Objectives

Previous research has shown that marketing and sales alignment can be critical to sustaining a company’s overall bottom line, but new data shows that there are still struggles between marketers and other teams.

Sojourn Solutions and Econsultancy recently teamed up to publish the “2019 Marketing Operations Maturity Benchmarking Report,” and statistics showed that the majority of top-performing marketers (41 percent) “mostly” align with sales on financial objectives, organizational structure and customer success. However, 45 percent of all marketers say that they only “somewhat” align with sales on financial objectives, organizational structure and customer success, or claim they do not align at all.

Among top-performing marketers, the majority (43 percent) claim that they are “fully” aligned and work collaboratively with key stakeholders across their organization. Just 23 percent of all other marketers could say the same.

The Growth of Sales and Marketing Alignment

Despite the challenges that may come with achieving sales and marketing alignment, previous research has shown that both teams are becoming more accustomed to working closely together.

LinkedIn published its “State of Sales” ebook, and statistics showed that overall, the number of salespeople who work “very closely” or “closely” with marketing has grown 35 percent since 2016.

Additionally, top-performing sales professionals seem to have a stronger relationship with marketers than their counterparts. These individuals are 13 percent more likely to say they work “very closely” or “closely” with marketers on prospecting efforts than other sales professionals.