What is Smarketing? (And Why It’s Important)

What is Smarketing? (And Why It's Important)

We live in an age where everyone is just looking for that next catchy catchphrase used to describe the latest innovation in business, but believe it or not, “smarketing” has been around for at least a decade. It’s nothing too fancy; it’s just a term to describe when sales and marketing converge to form a tremendous force.

Wait, let’s take a step back and try to understand this amalgamation of the words sales and marketing. Smarketing is the process of integrating your sales and marketing departments into a brute force of conversion prowess.

In many companies, sales and marketing form two different departments with divisions that are clear, but with roles that seemed too intertwined to be left on their own. When put together, they open up the doors in the achievement of proper growth that would seem to be untapped if left to operate in separate detachments.

Smarketing in a Nutshell

Imagine being able to integrate your marketing-qualified leads and your sales-qualified leads. The ability to be able to funnel in the proper target audience in your market share into a lead converting machine that integrates the prowess of your sales team in closing the sales.

Sounds terrific?

Well, the truth is it is, and companies have been doing it for a long time. Have you ever heard of inbound marketing? It’s an example of how you can get this thing to work.

How Can I Take Advantage of Integrating Sales and Marketing?

The integration of sales and marketing is not only advisable for previously scaled companies to scale up even more, but it can be used in a variety of setups. This means whether you are a digital nomad turned entrepreneur or the owner of a Fortune 500 company, there are a lot of ways to use it to enable growth in your company.

In fact, it can be advisable for a smaller business to apply the tenets of smarketing to help streamline the qualification of leads from the moment a target is made aware of the brand. Trust us; it’s the next big thing.

Related: Marketing and Sales Alignment – Best Practices

How Do We Go About Implementing Smarketing?

First things first, communication is essential. In all relationships, including yours, the only way a secure form of relationship between two – sometimes clashing – departments to work is through effective communication.

This means that everything from the jargon has to be streamlined in a way that is intelligible with both departments. The integration won’t happen overnight, and there is often an easing-in process that starts everything off. If you think about it is similar to romantic relationships sans the chocolate.

Both departments have to be aware of the changes that are happening, they have to start communicating, and the information has to be shared between them effectively.

Related: Lead Nurturing Activity Your Sales & Marketing Team Can’t Afford to Miss

Information Sharing is Key

For smarketing to be effective, the sharing of information has to be transparent and instantaneous.  Knowledge is power and sharing ideas, facts and statistics is one of the most effective ways that campaigns can be tested, experiments can be conducted, and feedback is implemented.

Look, you don’t have to come up with a “smarketing division” and abolish both departments altogether – we’re not that revolutionary, but something as simple as mixing desks and getting staff from both departments to meet together is enough to get you started.

An effective way of going about it is to start working on campaigns that are done in collaboration with both teams. This allows for them to utilize their unique set of skills and come up with the most active projects that both captivate and convert.

Now tell me if that isn’t an easier way of making conversions.

Related: Callbox Amazing Race: Enhancing Team TRUST & Effective Communication

Again With The Feedback

Let’s face it; we won’t be able to convert everybody and not every campaign is going to be as successful as we would want it to be. However, the most critical part of the whole endeavor is to derive feedback even from the initial sets of campaigns that the teams will be working together on.

The feedback will help develop the synergetic cross-developmental platform that will help your business achieve that level of growth that you want it to achieve.

Is It Worth It?

In 1969, we were able to get a couple of people on the moon with proper cooperation and synergy over at NASA. So, collaboration does work. It’s also proven that companies with great communication perform better and are more effective than those without.

We have to face it, the way conversions work has been changing, and we have to adapt to survive, but smarketing is more than just adapting. It’s the process of being able to scale in ways that we have never known before.

Try it out, the worst it can do is improve communication between your teams, and that does not seem to be too bad if you think about it.

Callbox consultation
Find out how you can drive more quality leads and sales appointments. Talk to us.
book meeting 📞 (888) 810-7464
Callbox offer image
ebook
Targeted B2B Marketing Handbook: Guide, Checklists and Worksheets
This eBook provides step-by-step guides, detailed checklists, and actionable worksheets to help you create a targeted marketing initiative from scratch (or refine your current program).