Forrester’s 2021 B2B Buying Study revealed that over 60 percent of purchases have more than four people involved-versus 47 percent in 2017-and they can include different buyer roles and departments. It shows a tighter alignment between marketing and sales. However, there isn’t always a clear path to alignment.
Solving the Sales-Marketing Conflict
One of the greatest sources of disagreement between marketing and sales is defining an appropriate lead, whether it’s qualified, and when it can advance through the Waterfall
- There’s no better way to determine if a lead is sales-ready than to directly ask them, “Are you ready to talk to sales?”
- Effective, engaging outreach takes considerable time and effort
- AI Assistants, powered by Conversational AI, are gaining momentum for their ability to touch every lead with personalized engagement at scale
Defining Roles and Responsibilities Through the Waterfall
Without agreed-upon goals, definitions, and defined roles for each team, miscommunications can often result in dropped leads
- Conversational AI is helping to bridge the gap between marketing and sales teams by meeting both teams’ needs
- AI Assistants can engage early-stage leads by generating and fostering initial interest through a lead’s actions
Waterfall Measurement and Creating a Feedback Loop
To define what successful Conversational AI deployment looks like, organizations need to establish key metrics such as average response time, waterfall velocity, number of sales accepted leads, deal velocity, and pipeline value
- Once the metrics are defined, a feedback loop should be introduced to collect data and glean insights
- These insights can be used to communicate outcomes with marketing and sales
