With the Inbound Marketing boom, terms have been coined or rescued that we should take into account and even implement even if we do not carry out the attraction marketing methodology. One of these terms is
Smarketing
One of these terms is Smarketing, that is, the process of bringing together sales and marketing teams based on the common goals of your tourism business. Because marketing and sales teams do not have to be antagonistic. In fact, it is counterproductive for your business, which has the same goal: to get more bookings or purchases online.
How can they be integrated to become a single Smarketing team?
- Both teams must have the same goals. Smarketing can be developed regardless of the size of your business, because it mainly has to do with the objectives of the business, that is, both teams must unite to achieve the same results.
- If we consider the lead-to-customer conversion funnel, the marketing team, in the early stages of conversion, must rely on the sales team to acquire end customers in the last stage. If these teams do not work together, it is unlikely that the conversion flow will be funnel-shaped and the final results will be achieved.
- Both teams should be in constant communication to know where each other stands with prospects and adjust to their needs in time to achieve your company’s goals.
- Since these target customers (the
buyer personas
) are living tools, both teams, in contact with them, should collect relevant information to help redefine their profiles and needs in order to improve your company’s online strategy.
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What is necessary to integrate Smarketing into your business?
In order for there to be no misunderstandings, both teams should speak and understand the same jargon, use the same language. To facilitate thisprocess, both should use the conversionfunnel. (Marketing and Sales) and equal concepts such as Top, Middle and Bottom. Traditionally, the upper part of the funnel (Top of the Funnel or TOFU) is the responsibility of the marketing team. The lower part (Bottom of the Funnel or BOFU) is the responsibility of the sales team. And the middle part of the funnel (Middle of the Funnel or MOFU) is the shared responsibility responsibility of both.
In each section of this funnel there are more specific lifecycle stages that need to be defined. Both teams must know and use each concept equally. To avoid confusing terms, it is important that both parties agree on the definition of each concept and commit to using them, especially in the middle part of the funnel.
For example, in the Middle of the Funnel, MQLs (marketing qualified leads) are those more active sales opportunities, those prospects that consume more specific content, that share on our social networks, that is, that are closer to our business objectives. For these leads, questions can be activated in the website forms to learn more about their buying preferences.
This stage allows defining the quantity and assessing the quality of qualified sales opportunities that pass from the marketing team to the sales team. And once the sales team has deemed that an MQL should be a SQL (sales qualified lead), their goal is to convert it into an opportunity. When this opportunity finally closes the sale, you get a new customer for your business.
How to switch from MQL to SQL?
Avoid transferring contacts to unsuitable or uninterested Sales. Therefore, in order to identify the MQLs(Marketing Qualified Leads) that Sales should focus on, you must have enough contact information to evaluate if they are really interested in using your products and/or services.
For example, if a lead does not show much interest, Marketing should nurture their interest with specifically targeted content, for example via email. Content that is focused on providing value to this prospect. But if there is interest, you need to secure it as MQL and try to have Sales follow up with service emails that assure this prospect that when they are ready to make the purchase or reservation, they will have the help they need from your company.
However, the funnel is not always linear. There are MQL sales opportunities that can revert to a previous state. If they had moved to SQL, the sales team has to consider what state of interest and suitability the contact is in so that the responsibility for following up with the contact lies with one team or the other. If it turns out to be unsuitable for sale, the most sensible thing to do is to reconsider its status in the funnel.
The key is to know what stages of the funnel each team is working on, with what content and strategies and how they can help each other. In order to communicate with prospects, each team must learn to communicate and work together.
