Aligning Sales & Marketing In The Social Media Cosmos

“When the moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars” – Age of Aquarius

I’m not real sure how much love we will ever see between sales and marketing, and even then we will still have to deal with that “placement of the moon thing” but, if anything could use an alignment … it’s these two. They are generally about as well aligned as a 56’ Studebaker that has hit too many curbs. The fact is, they need each other and they need help from each other.

The lines are blurring

You would have to be fairly blind to have not noticed that the lines between sales and marketing have been blurring. If you are a proponent of social sales, you are regularly creating and sharing content in an effort to create “brand you”. In the meantime, marketing is hard at work doing exactly the same thing but, their efforts are more directed toward “brand company”.

As a salesperson, I now find myself performing marketing functions and, speaking personally, I’m not wired that way. For that matter, I’m not even trained to do this stuff so … I sometimes flop around like a landed fish in a boat. At the same time I have to think that marketing might be concerned that my message might not be on target at best and maybe even counterproductive at its worst. I have an idea. Why not have marketing assist sales in their efforts and vice versa?

Where does sales need help?

We are salespeople and actual marketing is not something that most of us are very good at.

Help us to compose social updates that work!
Assist us in content creation.
Teach us how to make ourselves, and the company, really stand out.
Listen to our ideas!
Direct us as to how we can stay on target with the company message.
Show us how to track our results or, even better, you track the results and then share them with us. When salespeople see tangible results, they typically react in an enthusiastic manner.

What are things that marketing can do?

There are several tools that are available that can assist teams (marketing and sales needs to be one team, not two) in leveraging and sharing your social messaging …

GaggleAmp is a great tool for aggregating updates, sending notifications out to team members, and then allowing them to share those with the click of a button (through their own social profiles) via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. GaggleAmp can even keep a score on shares so, if gamification interests you, let the games begin! An administrator can control the content, have it auto-fed from sources, and also moderate and accept individual update suggestions. I am using GaggleAmp and it rocks!

Addvocate appears to be very similar to GaggleAmp, includes the creation of teams, and places an emphasis on team/individual contributions.

Circulate.it by Cloze has just been introduced. Like GaggleAmp and Addvocate, it leverages the power of your teams to send out consistent proven messages. Circulate.it is also big on reporting. Here is one for social engagement.

On a budget? Appoint a “Sharing Czar” and have them collect, aggregate, and create a list of pre-formatted updates that will work on ALL networks (remember that Twitter will have a 140 character limit and you need to leave room for each person’s @handle and for retweets) and then email this list out to team members at least once per week. I am also involved in this type of leveraged sharing and it works incredibly well.

Salespeople, you can help marketing too!

Life is not a one-way street and, if you want to be involved in social sales, you had best learn which side your bread is buttered on.

Few marketing people are mind-readers. Communicate your needs to them.
How about you share your results with marketing?
Help them with tips for honing your messages.
When leads are generated and assigned, follow-up with those and report back!
Ask them for their help and show them appreciation for what they do!
Keep an open mind. We are all venturing into uncharted territory.

Sales and marketing have different goals

Marketing will have to recognize one thing. While salespeople may be team players, their favorite team is always going to be themselves. This is understandable as many, if not most, B2B salespeople are paid at least to some extent on production (sales). They will be most inclined to share content that points back to them, highlights their expertise, and makes them more money. How crude. Still, if sales makes money, we all make money because …nothing happens until somebody sells something so … it’s best to get over it. As for salespeople, don’t be feeling too smug right about now. It is we who are arriving “hat in hand”.

As marketers, what content can you create that will benefit both the individual salesperson and the company? I’m guess that you have the tricks needed to do both . Maybe this comes in the form of tracking code that will assign leads to whichever rep generated them? Maybe it is dedicated landing pages for each salesperson? Hell, I don’t know. I’m just a salesperson. Please help me.

What are some of the things that your sales and marketing teams are doing to promote

“Harmony and understanding. Sympathy and trust abounding. No more falsehoods or derisions. Golden living dreams of visions. Mystic crystal revelation. And the mind’s true liberation. Aquarius! Aquarius!”

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

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Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services

Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!