CMOs and CROs: Why sales and marketing alignment must happen this year

The customer journey has changed – and marketing and sales models should too

Many of the old rules about customer engagement and sales enablement no longer apply. That doesn't mean there are no rules; every innovation effort should be tethered to customer value.

How a shift in strategy can optimize teams capacity to reach, engage, and convert customers over time

CMOs and CROs can’t afford to work in silos. They need better solutions that lead to a single path—a roadmap allowing a rapid pivot toward greater cost efficiency and higher impact marketing and sales strategies. As ROI pressure accelerates and inflation concerns and marketplace uncertainty lingers, transformation is not an option—it’s a necessity.

60% of marketers say marketing and sales don’t co-own customer strategy and data, and 25% say customer data is still owned in silos by marketing and sales¹

Customer insights are at the heart of ROI—creating a force multiplier effect around sales and marketing strategy

Unfortunately, data also works the other way—accelerating productivity drain as teams hunt for relevant insights amid a constant flow of irrelevant information.

CMOs and CROs know that analytics tools yield data that can unlock ROI, but reaching the right insights means navigating a high volume of information of varying relevance. The roadmap to better ROI holds customer behavior as its North Star. It starts with a more profound and highly integrated view of consumer behavior. Then, with granular insights into what motivates, drives, and redirects consumer choices, sales and marketing teams can quickly shift directions to effect winning omnichannel strategies as marketplace conditions change.

53% of marketers plan to focus on integrating data across customer journeys in the next 12 months¹

Marketing and sales technologies only matter when they work, and technology silos don't hinder strategy implementation

Marketing and sales teams use of technology can drive or hinder optimized sales and marketing benchmark achievement. That means sales and marketing technology strategy needs to not only align around ROI goals but also undergo a review for their functionality as a collaborative tool. When sales enablement technology and marketing technology optimization works, sales and marketing teams benefit from a cost-efficient mix of legacy and new technology that can fuel a high-performance revenue strategy. However, when technology fragmentation dominates an organization's tech stack, sales and marketing strategy alignment is often limited or blocked.

61% of marketers say fragmented technology across marketing, sales, and service restrains better sales-marketing alignment¹

Sales and marketing teams face many roadblocks to better ROI: they should come together around strategy, data, and customer focus

Those goals aren't aspirational for many CMOs and CROs—they’re table stakes for their organizations to remain competitive in an uncertain economy. The ability to meet these challenges successfully requires a radical, collaborative alignment of sales and marketing functions with long-term revenue goals. Yet for most sales and marketing teams, silos between customer strategy and implementation are common—only 39% of teams stated that marketing and sales departments jointly own and implement customer strategy.