I have a background in Sales and during this time that philosophy was drummed into us. I was part of a large international sales team and along with monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly targets, we were always talking about pipelines and forecasts.

To stay focused on those goals, there was a huge support network around us of technicians, administrators, finance specialists and of course marketers. All extremely experienced and competent in their individual positions.

The role of the marketing team was to communicate the key benefits of the product range and to raise awareness of the business to the relevant people in the industry sectors we were targeting.

That was the plan, but it didn’t always work out that way? Why? Because the relationship between the two functions was disjointed and were not working from the same song-sheet.

A simple change where Sales and Marketing work together makes a huge difference, it means that there is:

1. Shared goal - both working on the same targets mean that marketing activities are in line with the sales timelines
2. Plans - scheduling activity to generate enquiries or to promote events can support the sales pipeline and help attendance levels
3. Campaigns / Marketing Materials - can be targeted by job function, by sector, by product or service.
4. Follow up - sales or telemarketing activity can be scheduled to maximise responses or interest following a campaign
5. Signposting - social media or e-marketing activity can be co-ordinated to support a campaign and signpost to further information
6. Effectiveness - ultimately the results lie with a sale being made. In the sales cycle there will be many stages for monitoring and measurement, this includes the marketing activities and there will be analytics and statistics to help determine the effectiveness or if adjustments need to be made to improve.

My jump from Sales to Marketing happened when the two functions joined. I realised that Marketing was where my heart lay. That decision took me on a journey that included two years of formal training, exams and qualifications from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, seven years of working in marketing management roles and to date 13 years as Marketing Doris.