What is Smarketing? (Part 1.)

What is SMarketing and why should you spend energy on another concept and strategy? In a series of blog posts we will delve into just that. We'll start at the beginning with the concept itself and why the need for SMarketing exists in the first place.

‍

What is SMarketing?

SMarketing (sales + marketing) is a term used to describe the process of getting the sales and marketing functions of a company to work more closely together. And in some cases to be fully integrated into a common and unified process.

The aim is to establish direct, consistent and frequent communication with the company's customers.

‍

Why SMarketing?

Unfortunately, it is common for the Sales and Marketing departments of a company not to work together in the best interests of the customer. This is often due to separate objectives within the organisation. Within the Marketing and Sales department it is now quite common to use the term "Pipe or Funnel". This is to define and illustrate where the customer is in their buying journey. However, it is not at all uncommon for marketing and sales to use different terms and definitions in the pipe, for example for "leads".

‍

Market

The market pipeline is usually based on how "hot" a lead is. For example, it can be described as being in different phases such as in the "awareness", "consideration" and "decision" phase. The marketing department works to create brand awareness, drive relevant traffic to the website and ensure that multiple visits lead to relevant conversions. Once a visitor has provided contact information, the challenge shifts to warming up the lead with marketing communications. This is to generate enough interest to define leads as marketing qualified leads (MQLs).

‍

The handover

When the marketing department hands over its MQLs to the sales department, market engagement and responsibility for the relationship often ends. Hopefully, sales takes over the responsibility and makes contact with these leads, books appointments and closes deals. Marketing sits on their side of the pipe and hopes that the MQLs will lead to business, so the marketing department can measure how many of the leads they generated led to business.

‍

Sell

Meanwhile, on the other side sits the sales department with its own pipe built on prospecting, telemarketing and social selling. Where they think their own leads are better quality than the market qualified leads. They therefore don't prioritise making contact with these leads. It doesn't really matter which department has discovered the need and contact details of a potential customer; whether the lead has come from the web or whether a sales person has met the potential customer at an event. As a potential customer on the other side of the relationship, you may not care which department your information happens to be in at the time. As a potential customer, you want a consistent relationship. Where the company or brand shows that they are engaged and care and at least know who they are.

A lead is really an individual, who will experience the brand based on how good the service and how consistent the communication has been regardless of the channel and the internal department they have been in contact with.

Changing buying processes have changed today's customer behaviour from seekers to experts. Customers today are better informed and have higher expectations of relevance and service than ever before. The lines between industries are blurring, to the point where customers judge all companies and brands they interact with based on their experiences from other situations. This is not only true for consumer-oriented businesses, but is increasingly affecting B2B-oriented businesses as well.As a result, brands that do not meet customer demands risk being quickly replaced by other players that do it better. If customers experience brands in different and inconsistent ways, the supplier risks being challenged by other brands that offer a better experience.

But... what does it take to become a customer-focused organisation and provide a seamless customer experience?

SMarketing is an incredibly exciting topic. That said, you can read SMarketing Part 2 here