Hi Joe,
The sales team at my company is struggling to close, and it’s become clear that the leads they’re receiving aren’t correctly qualified.
Upon taking a closer look, it seems there is a significant lack of alignment between Marketing and MOPs, especially when it comes to managing leads as they progress through our funnel.
Any advice on how our teams can get back on the same page – and help our Sales team close more deals?
Thanks,
Alignment Anna
Hi Anna, thanks for writing in.
This is a challenging issue.
The unfortunate news is that it’s a common issue.
The good news is that it’s one that can definitely be remedied with a few tactical moves.
“Good communication is
critical to this solution.”
I should start by saying: good communication is critical to this solution. Without regular discourse and updates from all sides, alignment between teams is nearly impossible.
With that out of the way, I do have some more practical tips that will improve collaboration between MOPs and Marketing, ensuring they are fully calibrated when it comes to managing your buyer’s journey.
1. Plan and document lead progression metrics.
Leads are constantly coming into your database from several different ingestion points, such as
👉 landing pages
👉 paid advertisements
👉 events, and more.
As these leads are collected and segmented, it’s important to put relevant metrics in place that clearly demonstrate the requirements that must be met in order to progress a lead through your system.
For example, these metrics should specifically indicate when a site visitor is converted into a lead, then a marketing-qualified lead (MQL), sales-qualified lead (SQL), sales accepted lead (SAL), and so on, until they eventually become a customer.
Once your teams understand – and agree on – what these metrics are, I encourage you to create a well-defined, metrics-based map of the buyer’s journey that everyone can refer back to.
Well-defined buyer’s journey
=
sustained alignment.
Having accessible, detailed documentation like this is a reliable way to sustain alignment and eliminate future confusion. It ensures that your MOPs, Marketing, Sales, and even Demand Gen teams know the exact metrics and qualifications that push leads through funnel thresholds – leading to efficient collaboration and more effective campaigns.
Constantly testing these metrics for accuracy is important, too, as it ensures the desires of your Marketing team are aligned with how your audience is interacting with your content.
2. Clearly define buyer personas.
It is also important that everyone is on the same page about the categorization of leads as they relate to the type of buyers you want to target. For example, is your company looking to target C-level executives, lower-level managers, or something in between?
The answer to this question must be consistent for every team. Clear buyer personas allow Marketing to create more relevant content, nurture campaigns, and personalized messages that should be delivered at the right time in the buyer’s journey.
And while MOPs doesn’t create the actual content, the team is responsible for managing your lead database. This responsibility includes scoring and qualifying leads based on relevant metrics and characteristics that should be informed by those your buyer personas.
Some examples of these metrics include the number of:
➡️ CTAs a lead has clicked within marketing emails over the past several months.
➡️ service- or product-specific webpages visited.
➡️ interactions they’ve had with sales personnel.
3. Leverage tracking for timely content
Once your company’s buyer personas and lead progression metrics are well understood by all teams, the next step is to implement solid processes that track leads throughout the buyer’s journey.
Where is the lead in your sales funnel? Are they at the top of the funnel at the awareness level, in the middle of the funnel past problem identification, or near the end of the funnel and ready to purchase?
These are questions that your MOPs team can answer through the use of good tracking and filtering in your MAP.
This will allow personalized content send-outs, such as nurture campaigns, to be meticulously timed, reaching leads at critical points in their journey.
Bringing it all together
Your MOPs and Marketing teams can work together to create the best buyer’s journey possible by:
1️ Documenting proper lead progression metrics for all teams to see.
2️ Clearly defining buyer personas that inform these metrics and steer content creation.
3️ Implementing good tracking processes to enable timely content send-outs.
Ultimately, following these steps will improve your organization’s conversion rates and reduce headaches for your Sales team.
For more advice on aligning sales and marketing, download ‘The Roadmap to B2B Marketing Success.’
You’ve got this,
Joe
