How Marketing Teams can Work Together

Underrated marketing skill: Collaboration Collaboration is "the action of working with someone to produce or create something." Marketers are expected to understand the big picture and get everyone aligned on the action plan to create customers. On paper that seems simple enough. In reality, that's easier said than done. When you work with opinionated (and busy) leaders, it can be impossible to make any progress. It may seem easier to give up or sit back and let someone else take the lead. Whether you are... - implementing new tech - identifying new customer insights - setting up new marketing campaigns You can't do it alone. Here are a few tips to make collaborating with your peers more effective. 1) Be a leader First, understand that every project needs a leader. For marketing initiatives, that's you. :) Identify the stakeholders who are critical to helping you achieve your goal, then invite them to collaborate with you. 2) Set Expectations Create a plan with clear goals, timelines, tasks and roles. Ensure that all of your stakeholders understand that this is a TEAM effort - their participation and input are critical to the project's success. If they can't give it their full attention, ask them to appoint someone else who can. 3) Proactively seek feedback Effective collaboration is about understanding different perspectives. You may think you have alignment, only to discover later that one department isn't bought in. Make sure you proactively seek out different opinions/ ideas/ thoughts so that you can address all concerns (before it's too late). 4) Share progress Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Keep everyone informed so they don't go rogue and spin up unnecessary work. 5) Realize the difference between collaboration and consensus Your project may stall if you seek 100% agreement on everything. Compromises must be made, which means identifying and leaning on your project sponsor to help. This is typically a senior executive (or ultimate decision-maker) who is willing to accept the risks and keep the project moving ahead. TLDR; Collaboration isn't optional in marketing. Here are 5 tips to improve. #b2bmarketing #marketingskills #strategy

Most marketing fails because sales are left out of the room. I learned this the hard way. Years ago, I ran a campaign I thought would crush it. The creative was sharp. The data looked good. The ads went live. Then... Nothing. Leads trickled in. Sales team felt lost. Everyone pointed fingers. Where did I go wrong? I never brought sales into the room. No shared data. No feedback loops. No real talk about what the customer wanted. I thought more budget would fix it. I was wrong. Here’s what changed everything: → I invited sales to every kickoff. → We shared dashboards. Real numbers, not guesses. → We built content together. Sales talked, I listened. → Feedback was a two-way street, all the time. What happened next? - Sales started closing more. - Marketers got smarter about what worked. - Customers felt heard. - The team won together. ROI went up. Trust went up. Finger-pointing? Gone. Now, every campaign starts with everyone at the table. No silos. No secrets. No wasted effort. If you’re a CMO, growth lead, or marketer trying to scale: Get your sales team in the room-early and often. You’ll see the difference where it matters most: growth that lasts. How do you bring sales and marketing together in your company? Let me know what’s worked for you.

The ceiling of your outbound success is your company’s marketing engine. The future of outbound is... Drumroll...wait for it... Getting back to basics: sales & marketing alignment. My clients who experience the best outbound results have world-class marketing teams. And here's how they work better together to massively increase outbound success. 👇 ✅ 1) Customer snippet bank Create a bank of 2-3 sentence customer story snippets with: - Customer name - Industry and size of business - Personas - Problem statement - Result/outcome - The transformation Reps will LOVE marketing for this. This can be repurposed for cold emails, talk tracks, discovery conversations, demos, etc. ✅ 2) “The offer you can’t refuse” Increase the value prospects get in return for their time. Make prospects feel silly for turning a meeting down. My best clients lead with free website audits. They secret shop the prospect. They share world-class industry reports. They experience the brand. Teach don't take. ✅ 3) Collaboration with customers and prospective customers Create world-class content with your customers (AKA your prospect's peers). Get them on webinars, create ebooks, share short video snippets, etc. Don't make the content a big pitch about you. Make it valuable in and of itself. Then have reps send tailored, 1:1 outreach to check out the content. Adam Robinson calls this Inbound-Led Outbound. ✅ 4) Marketing: Ride shotgun with sales for a day It can work in the opposite way as well with sales. One of my best clients had 3-5 folks from the marketing team in the oubound workshops I led. Marketers...that's right...marketers...were learning how to cold call, handle objections, and had to role play with reps. Make sure both parties understand what it takes to do their job. ✅ 5) Build a messaging team Last but not least—assemble a team of 5-10 of the best reps, marketers, and sales leaders. Folks that really know the personas inside and out. Involving both marketing and sales punches up marketing messaging by making it "sales-ready." Instead of slide deck on new messaging, you get ready-made sequences, talk tracks, sales collateral, etc. ~~~ Want more ideas like these? Join me, Jen Allen-Knuth, Will Aitken, Sarah Reece 🥇, Doug Davidoff & Todd Clouser next Wednesday IN-PERSON at Outbound@Inbound in Boston. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eUv5gFBt