The traditional sales funnel is DEAD; long live “SMARKETING”1

The functions of sales and marketing have come a long way in the last 20 years. Today, for businesses to survive, a new way of combining the two functions is imperative due to fierce competition as a result of the notion that the world is flat2.

Companies that are willing to embrace technology will gain more customers, meet shareholder demands on ROI and most importantly survive!!

A definition of Marketing and Sales:-

Marketing is akin to setting up the ducks on a lake, for the sales team to shoot at.

Sales is the art of shooting the ducks, successfully. [Eli Goldratt: Theory of constraints].

In the past, marketing and sales were very distinct functions within the company and often operated autonomously.

Marketing’s function was the designing of brochures, setting up events and even looking at corporate gifts to be handed out to customers, amongst other functions.

Sales had a more structured approach to closing deals by using a methodology called the sales funnel.

The sales funnel comprised of various stages of the life cycle of concluding a sale. From initial cold calling to getting the deal signed off and operated independently of the marketing department!

There was often animosity between the two functional areas as marketing perception of sales was that they were lazy and incompetent to the point of being simpleminded. Sales on the other hand saw marketing as a bunch of academics, not knowing there target market and members of the local arts and crafts fraternity. A poll conducted within organizations showed that 87% of people had similar views about the two functional areas.

In the 21st-century due to the advent of social media there has been a tremendous paradigm shift in the way sales and marketing co-exist.

Welcome to the Internet.

Today, buyers can compare various products at their own leisure without an overzealous salesman trying to close the deal and meet his monthly target.

With the advent of social media, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest and Instagram all contribute to the conclusion of sales by making product information more easily accessible. If a company does not have a website presence, the company is considered to some extent irrelevant and loses out on the chance of been considered for the sale.

Businessmen who believe that by having a social media presence it will be a panacea for them to garner additional sales, are finding that social media, on its own, is failing dismally in one instance, because their social media campaigns do not complement and or drive web traffic to their websites.

Today marketing and sales departments need to share the same “sales funnel”.

Marketing is responsible for filling the sales funnel and sales is responsible for emptying it.

For example: cold calling used to be a sales function; however in today’s high-tech environment, cold calling is a marketing function. Today, cold calling is in fact disguised in a company’s blog. Today, blogging is no longer the domain of people writing about their daily life experiences, but is being used very subtly by companies to drive people to their websites.

Today’s customer is looking for a supplier that treats them differently to the way they were treated in the past. A sales consultant must be more than just a ‘smouse’, but an industry expert. They are also an adjunct to the company’s profitability and fulfil a strategic role in helping the company to be competitive.

Today the sales pitch is totally different in closing a deal to what it was a decade ago. Its understanding the customer’s problems in general, including the specific solution you wish to propose, goes a long way in building trust. This understanding is important with marketing and sales working together!

Therefore by understanding the various stages your customer is in in the buying cycle; marketing and sales together can deliver a united front in growing the company’s revenue. With these two functional areas sharing a common sales funnel, revenue can be increased by at least 20%.

In conclusion by embracing inbound marketing and encompassing marketing and sales functions in an organization, it provides a unified front in the quest for better market shares and growth.

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Notes

1 Source HubSpot: Inbound Marketing

2. The World is Flat by Thomas L Fiedman: Click here to read more