Aligning your sales and marketing HubSpot teams is always interesting because there is no fit-for-all answer. Every company has its unique sales and marketing process and different definitions of Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL), which makes it difficult to formulate one solution for all.
Companies that have not aligned their Sales and Marketing miss out on a smooth deal-closing process. A lot of back-and-forth communication happens in a misaligned sales and marketing process because SQL and MQL are not clearly defined in the company.
Identify your target customer groups to understand their needs and build your sales cycle stages around them. Only then can you confirm by definition which stage of the sales cycle the MQL will be converted to SQL. Both teams need to be clear on this transition. Otherwise, the lead will be ping-ponged from one department to another.
Once your teams have a clear idea about the lead's stage and status in the sales cycle, they will save time in back-and-forth communication on every lead that arrives in your HubSpot CRM.
Establishing clear communication between sales and marketing sets the foundation for alignment.
We suggest you create a centralized platform to discuss the goals and objectives of the sales and marketing department and exchange feedback.
Make sure that everyone understands the company's marketing and sales process, SQL, and MQL. This is important because once you define the company's marketing strategy, SQL, and MQL, everyone in the sales and marketing team will follow that definition. Also, your HubSpot platform will be set according to your definitions. This is an effective way to establish communication between the sales and marketing teams.
"A website visitor has filled the form on a sales landing page and wants to book a meeting to discuss further" – If this sounds something like your transitional point where the MQL has converted into an SQL. You want the sales team to take control of the lead; then, you must automate adding all such leads in the sales dashboard. The rest of the leads can stay in the marketing dashboard for the marketing department.
Many such scenarios/gateways tell a business that their MQL is an SQL; automate all such gateways to avoid confusion and simplify the process for both teams.
This will streamline the process of creating, delivering, and tracking leads from all stages of the sales and marketing cycles, respectively.
The alignment doesn't happen overnight; we know you wish you had a button that you push, and everything comes to its place. Until that happens, you must test and try different methods to know which works best for your business and teams.
We have seen cases where businesses increased and decreased marketing and sales stages and got different results. Ultimately, they picked the one giving them more effective results.
Track the manual and automated campaigns, and understand customer engagement, response rates, and lead conversion time.
Track the results of automated campaigns to understand customer engagement and response rates better.
Get in touch with HubSpot certified sales and marketing alignment professionals.