Sales for marketers: why your work is sales too

In many organisations, marketing and sales live in separate worlds. Marketing makes the leads, sales makes the deals, and somewhere in between a lot gets lost. A shame, because for the customer that divide does not exist at all. To them, your campaign, the website, the first conversation and the proposal are one continuous experience. And that experience decides whether they become a customer, and later a fan.

Why everything in B2B is sales

That is why I say: in B2B, everything is sales. Every marketing touchpoint is a moment of customer contact, and every moment of customer contact counts. The tone of voice of your newsletter, the promise in your advert, the speed with which a download is followed up: it builds trust or breaks it down, before a salesperson has said a single word.

The core attitude of sales applies to marketers too

That also means the core attitude of good sales applies just as much to marketing. Honest: is your content really about helping the customer, or about pushing your product? Customers see through slick talk, in a campaign too. Relaxed: do you communicate from confidence in your value, or from the pressure of the lead targets? The recipient feels shouty urgency just as clearly as a pushy salesperson at the table.

Fans are your best marketing channel

And there is something else. The biggest opportunity for marketing is at the bottom of the funnel, after the first sale. Fans, customers who have been helped so well that they actively recommend you, are your best marketing channel. Stories from real customers, referrals, reviews: you only create those together with sales and customer success. Larger organisations almost always fall into silos. By having the whole chain pull together, from marketing to new business to support, you break down those walls.

Making fans with the whole team, marketing included, is what my new (Dutch) book Van klant naar fan is about. Start small: put marketing and sales in a room for an hour and walk through your customer's journey together, from advert to proposal. Where does it creak?