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Getting Started with HubSpot Series: Sales and Marketing Alignment

Mackenzie | February 04, 2020 | Hubspot

As a HubSpot Partner Agency, we know that sales and marketing alignment is a big deal for any of our clients. Having aligned sales and marketing teams is one of the key ways to foster efficient, strategic growth that you can carry into the future. But, if you've been functioning with disparate sales and marketing teams for years, or if you just have a sales team and not much marketing help, it can be difficult to know where to start. 

 

That's where HubSpot comes in.

 

The platform itself was designed to help companies provide better, more personalized service to leads and customers alike. With tools to help your marketing and sales teams nurture leads with personalized workflows and real-time communication, HubSpot has everything you need to get your sales and marketing teams working together to close more of the deals you want, faster. And a HubSpot Partner Agency has the experience and the training your team needs to make it happen. 

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If you've been looking into sales and marketing alignment or HubSpot, but just aren't sure what to expect from the process, keep on reading. We're going to give you a complete look at what the sales and marketing alignment process looks like when you use the HubSpot platform to make it happen. 

 

Our Getting Started with HubSpot Series is written to help you understand what to expect when you sign on with a HubSpot Partner Agency for HubSpot Services. Over the next few months, we’ll work to cover everything from HubSpot onboarding to sales enablement and sales and marketing alignment. If you like these posts, and there’s a certain topic you’d like us to talk about, just let us know!

 

What Does Sales and Marketing Alignment Look Like?

 

Whether you have your own marketing team, or Evenbound is doing the work of a marketing team for you, our HubSpot Certified Trainers are always working to help align your sales and marketing goals. They are experts in sales enablement and alignment, and the work they've done with our current clients has shown just how important it is to the success of our clients to have aligned sales and marketing teams.

 

Like many other HubSpot-related services, sales and marketing alignment starts with a big meeting. Best case scenario, you get both your sales and marketing teams in one room to chat with a HubSpot Certified Trainer. If that's not possible, we'll do our best to get as many team members together at once. During that first meeting, the top priority is setting up an SLA:

 

Setting Up an SLA

 

Sales and marketing alignment starts with a Service Level Agreement (SLA).  It's a type of internal contract that helps your sales and marketing teams agree on one common goal that everyone is working towards. 

 

It also outlines specific intermediary goals for both sales and marketing teams. (For more info about SLAs, check out this blog about Marketing and Sales Alignment Strategies.) This is one of the most important aspects of aligning your teams, and lucky for you, our HubSpot experts are masters of the SLA. 

 

They'll help you figure out: 

 

  • What specific roles your marketing team is responsible for. Delivering a certain number of MQLs to your sales team, nurturing a specific percentage of MQLs who aren't ready to convert, and more.

 

  • What specific roles your sales team is responsible for. What percentage of SQLs they should follow up with, how many deals they should close per month, and what tools they should be using to do it.

 

  • What roles both teams will have to work together on. Communicating about both warm and cool leads, offering feedback about new marketing content, discussing which sales and marketing efforts are working or not.

 

Once you have an SLA in place, you can work to determine more specific goals that both teams can work towards to deliver meaningful growth to your company. 

 

Determining Your Goals

 

Sales and marketing teams have always had goals, they just haven't traditionally been aligned. This is another spot where a sales and marketing alignment service or HubSpot trainer comes in handy. 

 

As a Certified HubSpot Trainer and a HubSpot Project Manager, it's your HubSpot expert's job to help you set goals that actually contribute to the overall success of your company, and they know how to do that with HubSpot. 

 

So, they will help you set SMART goals that keep your sales and marketing teams aligned, and that ultimately help your company close more deals. 

 

Best of all, your HubSpot expert can help you get these goals put into HubSpot, so your entire team can see at a glance, how far you've come, and how far you have left to go in reaching those goals. 

 

Helping You Reach Them

 

Your HubSpot expert is also here to help you reach those goals. This is a key benefit of working with a HubSpot Agency Partner that you won't get anywhere else. 

 

Beyond just helping you set up and onboard onto the HubSpot platform, they help you continue to learn about HubSpot's tools in a way that pushes you towards those goals. They can work directly with both your sales and marketing teams to help them learn how to use the tools that will give them the best results, and put them closer to those goals. 

 

Ongoing Support and Connect Meetings

 

And support from a HubSpot Agency Partner doesn't stop when you meet your SMART goals. When you partner with an agency and work with a HubSpot expert, you get ongoing support and regular connect meetings that help you define new goals for the next month, quarter, or even year.

 

This ongoing support means they'll continue to train your team on the tools that will help them the most. Whether that's a refresher training on a tool they use every day, or brand new training on a tool your team isn't familiar with yet, regular connect meetings give you the opportunity to ensure your team is continuously improving and growing. 

 

Working with a HubSpot expert helps your team not only get used to the HubSpot platform, but truly get the most out of it. It's a great way to make sure your team is making full use of your investment.

 

How Much Work Will This Be For My Team?

 

No matter what HubSpot service we're talking about, the question we're asked most often is, "how much work with this be for my team?". When it comes to sales and marketing alignment, the work your team will have to put in has less to do with individual tasks, and more with shifting the way they think about marketing or selling. 

 

Unlike HubSpot Onboarding and Sales Enablement, which are tools-focused services, sales and marketing alignment is primarily focused on how your sales and marketing teams work together to close more deals that grow your company. 

 

While both teams will still need to learn about a variety of HubSpot tools, make it to meetings, and get comfortable with the HubSpot platform in general, the largest chunk of work they'll have to do is less task-related and more focused on communication. 

 

The goal of sales and marketing alignment is to ensure that both teams are working towards the same goals, in ways that benefit both teams. Here's a look at some of the things your team will have to do when trying to align your sales and marketing teams:

 

  • Make Time for Regular Team Meetings. They don't have to be long, but you should set up a regular meeting where both sales and marketing can talk about how they're doing to reach their goals, what the other team is doing to help them reach those goals, and how they could be better supported in reaching those goals. 
  • Time for HubSpot Sales and Marketing Alignment Training. In the beginning, your team will have to do a little bit more work to 1) set up alignment goals, 2) put tactics in place to reach those goals, and 3) to make sure both teams are working together to reach those goals. 

 

 

It's important to remember that while your team might have to put in a bit more time upfront, once you're marketing and selling with an aligned team, you'll see better, faster results. The marketing team will nurture more of the right leads, delivering your sales team the warm, qualified leads they know they can close on quickly. 

 

The Benefits of Partnering With A HubSpot Partner Agency for Sales and Marketing Alignment

 

When you partner with Evenbound for help aligning your sales and marketing teams with HubSpot, the benefits are twofold. First, you get expert advice on how to align your teams. Second, your teams learn how to use the HubSpot platform effectively, which means you get the most out of your investment in HubSpot.

When you work with a HubSpot Partner Agency, you're getting help from the most qualified experts in the industry. HubSpot Certified Trainers have completed a number of certifications and in-depth training sessions, plus they've worked with companies just like yours to teach sales and marketing alignment before. 

 

HubSpot experts know how to set up a quality SLA, and they know just what tools your team will need to be successful with sales and marketing alignment in the long term.

 

If you're looking to get the most out of your HubSpot account and bring your sales and marketing teams together to close bigger deals more efficiently, a HubSpot Partner Agency is your best bet. 

 

Evenbound is a HubSpot Diamond Agency Partner. That means we have HubSpot Certified Trainers and project managers who are trained through HubSpot to help your teams with these specific challenges. 

 

To learn more about our HubSpot Services, just get in touch. Our HubSpot Certified Trainers would be happy to talk more about your specific goals for sales and marketing alignment, and the HubSpot platform in general. 

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