It might be hard to take the word “smarketing” seriously. Just the sound of the word is faintly ridiculous and without context, coming off as buzzy yet ultimately meaningless phrase. Yet for both those in digital marketing and companies looking to boost revenue and generate leads, smarketing is one of the most important concepts of the last few years.
What is Smarketing?
Smarketing is first and foremost a blended word or what some may call a portmanteau – a word that’s the combination of two words in both sound and meaning – that refers to the alignment of sales and marketing, typically for a digital enterprise. When a company embraces smarketing, it pulls together both the sales and marketing teams to create a singular, unified strategy of work to achieve the business’ ultimate goals.
This recent push to align these two vital parts of an enterprise is a necessary practice in the digital age, and prior to that marketing and sales departments didn’t necessarily overlap. Marketing could refer to the various advertising and branding initiatives designed to help raise awareness of a company’s products or services in the greater marketplace. Sales, on the other hand, was focused on generating and closing on leads at various stages in the sales funnel.
Why Smarketing?
As marketing moved into the digital space, many enterprises ran up against issues of lead generation. Through their responsibility of creating greater brand awareness, marketers often supplemented sales teams – yet, according to Blair Pettrey, an expert at inbound marketing, most “true marketers” weren’t meant to be the sales person and might struggle to close leads. Even worse, as Rachel Holmes, sales & marketing director at Really B2B claimed, there may be issues and disagreements between the sales and marketing teams as to:
- Who is the target audience?
- What are the company’s pain points and challenges?
- What constitutes a qualified lead and KPI’s for engagement, response and conversion?
“Failing to smarket can cost 10% of annual revenue.”
Over time, the misalignment of sales and marketing can become critically damaging to vital operations. This translates directly to lost revenue, as HubSpot reports that this misalignment costs B2B companies 10 percent of revenue or more per year. It’s worth mentioning that a HubSpot executive coined the term “smarketing.”
To push and pull between sales and marketing, both teams must be brought together to agree on the fundamental KPIs and audience profiles. Vitally, marketing professionals need to develop the skills to identify and nurture leads by working in tandem with sales. As a result, HubSpot reports 36 percent higher customer retention and 38 percent higher sales win rates can happen when sales and marketing work together – and an impressive 208 percent more revenue from these efforts.
Profiles: The Nexus of Marketing and Sales
Profiles recognizes that the digital market is always changing – and changing quickly. This is why our marketing recruiters are constantly working to identify and represent the top 20 percent of candidates in each industry and give them the tools to stay on top of the latest operational trends. Whether a company is in need of lead generating marketing professionals or creative technology experts, Profiles’s creative staffing process connects you with innovative thinkers and Fortune 500 companies.
