Sales, together with marketing=success

To succeed with a campaign, seamless collaboration between the marketing and sales departments is essential.

Despite this, many companies still operate in silos where marketing and sales lack a shared strategy. According to HubSpot, only 26% of companies report that their sales and marketing departments are well-aligned.

I’ll return later with my own thoughts on what characterizes a successful campaign. But already now, I want to say: many people make it unnecessarily complicated. It becomes too complex. Of course, it varies depending on the purpose, target audience, offer, and budget – but keep in mind: more data points aren’t always better. Focus on what matters.

But what does successful collaboration actually look like in practice?
Here are the key steps to executing a joint campaign – with real results.

1. Shared Goals and Strategy

Everything starts with defining a common goal. It could be about increasing the number of leads, driving traffic to a product launch, or boosting sales of a specific product. The goal must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Accepted, Realistic, and Time-bound.

This might sound obvious, but I often see cases where marketing informs sales about an upcoming campaign without aligning with them beforehand. Sales must be involved from the start.

Companies where sales and marketing work toward the same goals experience an average of 20% higher annual growth (Aberdeen Group).

2. Create Shared Personas and Target Audiences

For a campaign to hit the mark, there must be a shared understanding of who the customer is. By developing joint customer personas, miscommunication is avoided, and both sales and marketing activities can be tailored to the customer journey.

Don’t dig too deep when building a persona. If you’ve done the analysis and still aren’t 100% confident, it might be wise to paint with broader strokes.

3. Coordinated Campaign Plan and Timing

Marketing often manages content, channels, and campaign outreach – while sales takes over once the leads are qualified. A synchronized campaign calendar, where all elements (content, send-outs, follow-ups) are aligned, provides a better customer experience.

Tips:

• Use a shared CRM or campaign tool.

• Hold weekly meetings during the campaign period to adjust efforts in real time.

4. Lead Management and Qualification

This is where misunderstandings often occur. Marketing generates leads, but sales sees them as “not interested.” By defining MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads) and SQL (Sales Qualified Leads) together, the handover process is improved.

Moving from MQL to SQL should mean something – not be too easy. It’s easy to create SQLs, but if sales finds them lacking in substance, trust is lost, and valuable SQLs may be missed.

Organizations with clearly defined MQL and SQL criteria generate 67% more high-quality leads (Marketo).

5. Transparent Follow-Up and Analysis

When the campaign ends, a joint analysis is essential:

• Which channels performed best?

• How many leads were converted?

• What did the sales team think of the lead quality?

With these insights, future campaigns can be optimized and improved.

Summary: 6 Keys to Success

1. Set shared goals and KPIs.

2. Create shared customer personas.

3. Plan and communicate together.

4. Define leads clearly.

5. Follow up together – and learn from each campaign.

6. Don’t overcomplicate. Focus on a few, but vital, data points.

Getting marketing and sales to work as a unified team isn’t always easy, but the benefits are clear. Companies that succeed in this have 36% higher customer loyalty and significantly shorter sales cycles (LinkedIn State of Sales).

Next time you’re planning a campaign – make sure both departments are at the table from the start.
That could be the difference between a campaign that “goes out” – and one that actually lands.