Measure, Align, Transform: Sales and Marketing Integration
The theme for our 2010 Summit is “Measure – Align – Transform.” A fitting tone for what lies ahead in 2010. While marketing and sales in b-to-b experienced a rocky road in 2009 with longer sales cycles, reduced budgets and a fickle customer base, the two functions also relied on each other more than they have in the past. Pipeline acceleration programs doubled indicated sales reliance on marketing for downstream, as well as upstream, programs. In addition, solution marketing increased with companies segmenting further and changing their messaging and approach to be more precise and relevant to their core markets. Finally, for the eighth straight year field marketing budgets increased. Yes, marketing and sales budgets changed often with big decreases, but these changes indicate the need for the relationship for marketing and sales to continue to change and evolve into a more and more strategic partnership, and not organizations competing for budget.
Summit 2010 research is currently underway and it’s an outcome we are eager to see. As we experienced in 2001 when marketing and sale investment changed, it did not go back to where it began, nor do we expect this to occur in 2010 or beyond. Instead, marketing will become more leveraged and more measurement based, and sales will transform its channels and revenue for the future, with more coming from inside and indirect while partnering more with marketing to increase sales readiness.
We believe that b-to-b sales and marketing is at an inflection point of change and look forward to do our best to draw what the outcome might look like at the upcoming Summit.