In the sales industry, marketing is essential. Marketing determines where your product fits into the market, who you’re selling to and how you’re advertising. Supporting the marketing team can  help increase sales and make the job of the sales team much easier. Here are some ways your sales team can support your marketing team. 

Be Good Listeners

Yes, sales is the one-on-one interaction with clients that takes place on the ground floor and seals deals. But how did those clients get to you in the first place? Odds are they were pushed in your direction by marketing. Even if the sale didn’t originate through marketing, there’s still a strong possibility that how the customer perceives your product and your brand stems from marketing. 

This is why it’s important for the sales team to listen to the marketing team and understand the marketing strategy. The sales team should be aware of how your brand is positioned in the market and who your target audience is. Understanding these ideas is ultimately going to make it easier for your sales team to make a deal. 

Have the Right Tools

Listening only works if your teams are sharing with each other. How can you make sure that your sales team has the right information to understand their market? Sales management is key here. This process involves many facets, including making sure you hire the best people and train sales staff well. Implementing a successful sales strategy is an important part of the process. 

There’s software to help with this that can allow sales reps to connect with each other, the marketing team and other parts of the organization. Utilizing management software can give you a place to store data, share strategies and even videoconference. It also allows for storing and easy access of client information, meaning a more streamlined process for your sales team. 

Give Feedback

Especially when the sales team is equipped with the right tools, it’s important to give feedback to the marketing team. Yes, marketers are experts in what they do, but that doesn’t mean that they have the whole picture from every perspective. If your marketing team is doing their job right, they are in the right market with the right audience. 

At the same time, they aren’t on the ground floor with customers like the sales team is. This means that if the sales team isn’t communicating who they’re speaking with on a daily basis, the marketing team is missing out on key information. This information could help the marketing team more successfully position products.

Sales team members are going to see habits. Maybe the sales team knows that the current marketing campaign is focused on millennials, who are being sold the product based on certain benefits. But day-to-day, the sales team sees a much older demographic of customers coming in and asking for the product based on other perceived benefits. This trend could mean the potential for growth in a new market or a complete need for a shift in marketing. If the sales team doesn’t give this feedback to the marketing team, then a big piece of the picture is missing. 

Be a Part of Cohesive Branding

Finally, to really make marketing successful, each department needs to work together cohesively. This is why it’s important for the sales team to understand the marketing strategy. If marketing is working to position your product in a certain way, make sure that the sales team is working to position the product in the same way when they’re making sales. This will ensure that branding is cohesive on all levels and help your product and brand image become more defined in the market.

The most successful companies have sales and marketing departments that work well together. It’s much easier to carve out a niche for your product in the market if both departments are working together and regularly communicating to make sure image and branding are maintained.