The sales funnel is a vital cornerstone of marketing and sales activity — but, it also has some serious limitations.

That’s because today’s customers often research their way into the interest/desire stage all on their own. In fact, most prefer to do so. It’s why so many SaaS businesses are restructuring how their sales and marketing teams work.

By fostering greater alignment between sales and marketing teams, businesses have been able to adapt the funnel to the modern B2B buying processes. And in doing so, they’ve increased revenues, made customers happier, and closed deals more quickly. Sounds perfect, right?

But, what if you’ve tried to unify your sales and marketing processes and are yet to see all the results you were promised?

Harmonising Sales and Marketing isn’t easy and there are lots of understandable reasons that things can veer off course.

In this blog post, we dig into those reasons, exploring the common pitfalls SaaS companies can encounter on their mission to create Sales and Marketing unity. We’ll also outline the best ways to get out of them.

Want to learn more about creating alignment between Sales and Marketing first? Read our eBook where we delve into cracking alignment for a more compelling customer buying journey.

Already got Sales and Marketing together and want to know how to prepare for the pitfalls? Keep reading below…

Common mistakes that break up Sales and Marketing

Sales and Marketing can be the perfect pairing. But what happens when it all goes south?

Here’s how to avoid the common mistakes that threaten a harmonious partnership.

Focusing on too many markets and segments

A major challenge in sales and marketing alignment is creating a shared language — a consistent message at every touchpoint on the customer journey.

That becomes a lot harder when each market requires specific strategies and efforts. Your messages can come across as diluted or generic and it can become a lot harder to prioritise the right leads.

Instead, define the target market together. What customers and verticals are you specifically going after? Establish common messaging and unified goals. Then, specify brands you’d like to have as customers and work together on targets using account-based tactics.

Dropping the ball on lead management

Reduce friction by agreeing on what leads marketing should go after, and make sure leads created aren’t lost or left cold. It helps to look at the pipeline together and get in sync to spot opportunities, and continuously adjust your tactics. Otherwise your marketing team will continue to generate low-quality leads.

Do this instead: Decide who does what and when between Marketing and Sales — include key processes, such as: decide on what a lead is, how to hand over leads, what to log in your CRM, and how to handle unqualified leads. This way, you’ll be working as one team and nothing will fall through the cracks.

Leaving money on the table

If you work in silos, you risk having a high cost of acquiring a customer (CAC), which can cause problems. So keep a close eye on how much it costs to acquire a customer and how long it takes to recoup those costs.

As a rule of thumb, your payback time should be around 9-12 months. Too short means you’re leaving money on the table that you could invest in marketing and sales. Too long means your marketing and sales processes are not effective enough.

Take a data-driven approach. Instead of just funnelling customer data into a dark corner of a CRM, sit down and look at the accounts and patterns together. Make it part of your catch-ups between teams and create new goals off the back of it.

Reconciling Sales and Marketing

Keeping your sales and marketing teams connected is no easy feat. But if you want to nail the customer buying journey, have unified messaging, and take a more strategic approach to winning new customers — there isn’t another way.

Follow these steps and you’ll be on your way to creating a happy marriage between Sales and Marketing.

Want to learn more about creating a shared language between Sales and Marketing? Download Sales and Marketing alignment: The SaaS guide to creating the perfect match eBook.