6 Quick Wins to Align Marketing & Sales

by Oliver Booker, Marketing Manager

Inspired by a recent workshop, and from the experience of building a marketing arm in a growing consultancy business, here are 6 quick wins to align marketing and sales in your consultancy.

1. 🎯 Align your marketing goals to your company goals.

Everyone will have a different perspective on what value marketing provides, or what it even does.

Interviewing people in your organisation about what they think works, and what needs improving, will help drive a marketing mindset across the business to the non-believers. For example, “The LinkedIn posts aren’t consistent or powerful enough and don’t reach our target audience,” or, “case studies are a huge value-add when trying to close business, we need more!”

In SBR, in everything we do, we always ask ourselves, “What went well”, and “It would be even better if…” How often do you adapt and learn, and what old habits are dying hard in your business?

2. 📈 Measuring the impact and ROI of your marketing activities.

When presenting back to the leadership, you should be able to say, “With _____ budget we have achieved _____. With more, we can reach _____ audience and achieve _____.”

Get the leadership on your side so you can have a senior voice when making bigger marketing suggestions. Who are your sponsors in the business?

Communicate good news. Marketing is the biggest support engine for all the other departments, so it needs to be communicated to get support from your colleagues.

Everything you plan with your marketing engine should stem from 3-4 of your key business objectives.

3. 🐟 Better to be a big fish in a small pond.

Be experts in your niche. Everyone does Transformation, but what do you do specifically that solves the issues your clients are facing? If you have a solution to their pain points, they’ll work with you – it’s as simple as that. Be experts in a more unique field rather than one full of competition

I recently found a great Digital Marketing Framework from another marketing professional in a consulting firm that started with, “What do you want to be famous for?” Be a thought leader in your niche. Build your messaging and content off that and “atomise” it. Always be leveraging!

Use the voice of the customer and align your marketing with that voice. Keep looking to see where marketing can add value.

4. 👥 Don’t do everything yourself.

It’s taken me years to learn how to do less. Play to your strengths and use external specialists where appropriate. Marketing is one instrument in the band. Get budgets for a graphic designer to create your LinkedIn posts and marketing collateral. Use partners to boost your audience and expose your value proposition. Outsource videographers from other countries if budgets are tight. Use SEO experts for advice… the list goes on.

5. 🤖 Artificial Intelligence is your friend.

I know this may be seen as an enemy to some, but it’s not stealing your job yet. And no, I didn’t use it to write this blog.

ChatGPT and other AI can be great if you need some nuggets of inspiration. Don’t just copy and paste – it will be very plain! But you can use these tools to start your marketing copy and give you ideas and brainwaves that you may not have thought of without that extra cup of coffee.

6. 💻 Now go and build your marketing plan.

Build a one-page lead-generation and nurturing plan. Are you working on your SEO, do you pay for PPC, or is it worth it for your business? How often are you posting on social media? Do you have a podcast to nurture your community? What’s your PR strategy? What’s your resource strategy? Are you paying for or do you need advertising? Are you tracking activity on your CRM well enough? How are you tracking affiliate marketing? Answers to these questions and more are a great starting point for your plan.

One top tip for your website resources is to offer a PDF alternative to what you’re reading. While you’re reading this, I should put a couple of buttons, “Download this as a PDF”. It’s much less invasive and ultimately leads to your visitors filling out that form!

Let me know your lightbulb moments from reading this post and how you’re using marketing to attract new visitors. What other quick wins are proving effective, and what relationships have you built?

To talk to us more about aligning marketing and sales in your consultancy, get in touch by e-mailing info@sbrconsulting.com, connect with us on LinkedIn, or call us on +44 (0) 207 653 3740.