The Border Wall Crippling Your Conversion Rates Right Now

Life is easier with “sides” (her side of the bed, his side of the sink, our side of the court, their department, etc.).

So it’s no surprise that even in 2018, many sales and marketing departments maintain an “iron curtain” between their departments. Not only do these departments not interact with leads before or after that separation line, but any discussion is quickly shut down with “no, that’s the other team.”

But the question that many companies aren’t asking themselves about this divide is, “Can my team have a measurable impact beyond the ‘divide’—even if in partnering with another team?”

To answer that question, Rogue has gone through an exercise to help you use data to decide where and how marketing and sales should not only cross paths, but have deeper collaboration.

Where Does Your Work Stop Being Effective?

When you start working with Rogue Marketing, we evaluate your path to revenue. To get an accurate map, Rogue uses something we call a “revenue roadmap.” It’s a souped up sales funnel that pinpoints exactly how to apply the tactics required to improve conversion rates all the way down to the sale.Observe how a B2B company’s revenue roadmap might start:

Impressions (Audience) →
Click Rate: Improve this metric with more refined targeting, channel selection, investment, SEO, and more

Click/Site Visit (Prospect) →
Action Rate: Improve this metric with optimized messaging, content, form UX design, retargeting ads, and more

Form Fill/Call/Contact (MAL) →
Conversion Rate: Improve this metric with targeted messaging, nurture campaigns & automation, retargeting ads, and more

Demo Request/Qualification (MQL) →
Qualification Rate: Improve this metric with targeted messaging, nurture campaigns & automation, retargeting ads, and more

Intro Call (SAL) →
Advancement Rate: Improve this metric with messaging scripts, caller needs outlines, content, and more

Sales Call (SQL) →
Proposal Rate: Improve this metric with messaging scripts, caller needs outlines, content, and more

Proposal →
Close Rate: Improve this metric with content, collateral, and more

Closed Won →
Retention/Re-signing Rate: Improve this metric with content, contact, reports, etc.

Retention

Where would you start building that wall? Probably between MQL and SAL, right?

If you’re the marketing department, is that the last place your team can have an impact on conversion rates? If you’re the sales department, is the SAL the first place you can impact lead qualification? Are those stages the limits of how your team could increase conversion rates and revenue?

Yeah, but is it really?

The truth is, sales pros make excellent conference speakers. They likely aren’t closing any deals right as they walk off the stage, but they get the brand quality exposure and create new opportunities…something almost always relegated to the marketing team. And no matter how protective the sales team may be of “their leads,” there has never been a sales department in the history of sales departments that didn’t gripe about not having enough marketing materials, emails, videos, you name it.

Marketing pros, on the other hand, aren’t just a bunch of arts and crafts guys and gals. They’re data nerds. They’re industry watchers. They’ve got their ears to the ground, and they wrote the stuff that got leads in the sales pipeline in the first place. So when marketing comes to sales with needs analyses, content, collateral, and email workflows for late-stage opportunities, it’s a good idea to listen.

How to Start Tearing Down Your Wall

If Mr. Gorbachev could be convinced that the wall wasn’t in his best interest, chances are your organization will do better without barriers between departments, too.

Here’s the truth: Your expertise doesn’t have a threshold. And that means the walls between sales and marketing (and product and customer service) are artificial barriers to your organization’s ability to grow.

But throwing wide the doors without a strategic direction is just as harmful as having the clear separation because you haven’t yet defined what success looks like. Creating a strategy helps you define success so that you know how to get more of it.

Download the full version of the B2B Revenue Roadmap here

Go ahead and download your revenue roadmap. Modify it to fit your model for marketing, sales, implementation, and client success. Each department adds their contributions to the flow, with the goal of improving the conversion rate from one stage to the next. Now you have a clear goal to hit (higher conversion rate), and a clear tactic contributing to that goal (defined by each department).

Sometimes You Have to Go Rogue

In practically every case we’ve seen here at Rogue, a revenue problem is not a matter of marketing getting more leads, or sales closing more business. Revenue problems stretch out their roots into product, marketing, sales, and implementation/success. Trying to solve the problem with a quick shot of marketing or squeezing your account executives to close more isn’t enough.

What do you do when the typical answers don’t solve your major problem? You do something different. You try something you’ve never tried before. In other words, you go Rogue.

If you’re ready for your team to start hitting real home runs, talk to Rogue. We’ve got the consulting and strategy chops to help you see exactly where to spend a dollar and get a return, and the tactical acumen to take you from ideation to implementation without skipping a beat.