A recent Harvard Business Review article highlighted the fact that, despite a shared goal of attracting and retaining customers, sales and marketing teams frequently find themselves at odds, leading to a divide that can have a significant impact on a company’s performance. When marketing and sales teams disagree, internal conflicts can take up valuable time, resulting in less effective marketing and fewer deals closed, which can lead to missed targets, reduced sales, and lower revenue.
In some cases, these types of disagreements are due to a perception by sales that marketing’s function is primarily sales support -- that they are responsible for developing communication materials and planning sales events -- or else that marketing is just responsible for brand health and management. Moreover, marketing can be viewed by sales as just a provider of qualified leads. These are all, without a doubt, misguided notions, as marketing has a much more strategic role in the firm and could do better helping sales in this manner, in addition to the ones previously mentioned.
One way to increase collaboration between sales and marketing teams is data-related. Marketing and sales often use different systems and databases, causing poor visibility and collaboration. Siloed data and processes hinder data-driven decisions and campaign optimization.
In a previous article, we discussed the sections in the ANA’s B2B Data and Analytics Playbook on finding B2B decision committees, which are comprised of target and hidden buyers. We identified that there is a huge opportunity in the B2B market to enhance the collaboration between marketing and sales by using the combined data to identify these important groups. The identification of the decision committees can then be taken to the next level by developing relationship intelligence, which is the use of advanced models and synthetic data to create individual profiles that sales and marketing can use to help create better relationships with prospects or customers.
Identifying the decision committees and developing relationship intelligence enables marketing and sales to address another typical point of contention, which is the failure to align on the right target accounts. This failure is especially problematic when marketing and sales are working on an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) program. ABM works largely under the premise that the combined power of marketing and sales, hyper-focused on the accounts with the highest potential, drives better outcomes. Failure to get in line with this foundational element and all the enterprise tactics will be in vain.
The blog’s author described work in one firm where they set a lead score for prospects and made it a management directive that everyone needed to follow the top-scoring prospects when utilizing resources to acquire new clients and business customers. This example highlights how aligning sales and marketing processes can improve consistency and focus across teams.
The above case is another area in which collaboration between B2B sales and marketing can be enhanced with data, specifically through the creation of an intent-driven B2B lead-scoring model. Lead-scoring models sit within the family of propensity models. They have an important role in B2B sales and marketing due to the fact that, on average approximately 73 percent of qualified leads are not ready to buy a firm’s product or service (Salesmate) when they first engage.
If sales and marketing reach out to these leads randomly, they may miss an opportunity to contact those who have a high chance of conversion. This is where intent-driven lead scoring comes to the rescue.
Intent-driven lead scoring can be used to prioritize qualified leads by ranking them based on their unique needs, intent to purchase, propensity to convert, and the potential value they bring. This score can also bridge that important gap between marketing and sales so that the teams can focus on the highest-quality leads.
Thus, having accurate and shared data and analyzing and using it to its full potential, can help to alleviate the tension between marketing and sales generated from not having the right target accounts.
Overall, the entire firm benefits when the sales team views the marketing team as a trusted ally on a strategic mission together as one team. When sales and marketing share similar objectives, they can then collaborate around a common goal. The first step is sharing data and co-developing various strategies, including ABM and B2B marketing and advertising, which can help them to work together as parts of a co-led account team.
It cannot be overstated that data is the key here, as marketing and sales both have their own data that can be combined to produce the best prospects and accounts to target, customized messaging and content, optimized execution strategies, and, lastly, metrics to properly evaluate success.
The B2B Analytics Playbook recently published by the Association of National Advertisers and titled Using Data to Supercharge B2B Marketing has specific sections on all of these opportunities on how to align marketing and sales based on shared data.
Creating the various “data products” with combined marketing and sales data, which were discussed in this article, will enhance marketing and sales team collaboration and target the right accounts, leading to more effective marketing campaigns and outbound sales and prospecting activities. Aligning sales and marketing is crucial for maximizing your business's potential.
To learn more, download the B2B Playbook -- Using Data to Supercharge B2B Marketing: An ANA B2B Data and Analytics Playbook — and start identifying hidden buyers, modeling decision committees, and turning insights into impact.
For a deeper dive, join us at the ANA Masters of Data Conference and attend the in-person B2B Data Excellence Lab focused on applying decision committee insights to real marketing strategies.
References:
Buan Christine. (2024, May 23). A Mythical Divide: Why Sales and Marketing Teams Often Clash. DemandScience. https://demandscience.com/resources/blog/aligning-sales-and-marketing-teams/
Data Axle USA. (n.d.). Lead generation statistics you need to know. Data Axle USA. https://www.dataaxleusa.com/blog/lead-generation-statistics/
Edelman & LinkedIn. (2025). B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report. Edelman. https://www.edelman.com/insights/b2b-advertisers-thought-leadership
Kotler, P., Rackham, N., & Krishnaswamy, S. (2006, July-August). Ending the war between sales and marketing. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2006/07/ending-the-war-between-sales-and-marketing
Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.
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