If your sales and SEO team needs a refresher on how to work together, this article is for you.
It's no secret that marketing and sales don't always see eye to eye.
The sales team gets angry at the marketing team for lack of leads and marketing gets angry at sales for not closing deals.
For two areas so closely linked to each other, the lack of cooperation is quite surprising.
In fact, according to a recent InsideView study titled, “The State of Sales and Marketing Alignment in 2018,” only the 37% of salespeople reported meeting with the marketing department to analyze the qualification of potential customers.
Even more telling, Hubspot's 2017 State of Inbound report noted that only the 44% of marketers feel they are aligned with sales. Oh!
Although technology has made it much easier to align sales and marketing, many companies still treat these departments separately.
How can we better align our sales and marketing efforts, specifically when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO)?
Obviously, there is no one answer, each organization will be different. However, when thinking about SEO and sales, there are a few things we can do:
1.- Set up monthly integrated meetings
When I worked at a certain company, the marketing team had weekly calls with the support team. The goal was to discuss common issues customers face, identify issues or gaps on the site, and ensure the marketing and support team were aligned on communication.
The same can apply to sales and marketing.
Establish monthly meetings to discuss objectives, strategies, results and campaigns. The key to success is ensuring everyone knows what is happening, why it is happening, and how to address it. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a marketing team launch a campaign without notifying the sales team. How are they supposed to sell something they know nothing about?
Consider creating a Slack channel for teams to communicate. Open lines of communication and shared knowledge equal a more cohesive team.
2.- Use sales data to inform SEO tactics
When we onboard a new customer, we spend a considerable amount of time discussing the sales process, evaluating existing sales materials, and, in many cases, analyzing product demos and sales platforms.
We ask questions like:
- Who is the target buyer?
- Who is the one who makes the decisions?
- What are the key problems you hear during the sales process?
While these questions may seem basic, they help determine how and where buyers search and what type of content we need to give them.
For example, if a client only sells to companies with over $100 million in revenue, addressing the challenges faced by the small business doesn't make any sense. If the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is the decision maker, their main concern is probably tied to how your product or solution will help them financially.
Understanding the nuances of the buyer, the sales process, and everything that entails is key to creating an SEO strategy that drives sales, which brings us neatly to our next point.
3.- Assign your keywords to the customer journey
What is the objective of an SEO program? To be found by the right people, at the right time, in search results. More or less.
Easier said than done. We not only have to understand the buyer, but also understand the keywords our buyers use and the search intent behind them throughout the customer journey.
Fortunately for us, the data found in the material used to attract a new customer, the sales process, the pitch deck, and common problems can help shape the keyword research process.
A keyword research process must also be adapted. It has to focus on the themes and the intention, and it is no longer about selecting a few phrases and that's it.
Once you have your keyword themes, you can review them with your sales team, start mapping them to the customer journey, and most importantly, start applying them to your overall content and SEO strategy.
4.- Create resources that work for everyone
As an SEO, you typically have direct knowledge of what content is needed, what content is being created, and where that content resides. That's not the case for all departments.
A few days ago, a customer mentioned that he found a lot of really good content on the site that wasn't linked from anywhere and was only used for sales. The marketing team didn't know, and we didn't know anything about it. What could we do with that?
Understanding what is available and how it can be used in marketing and sales can be beneficial to your overall strategy.
Take webinars, for example. Most companies have a webinar, and then you never hear from it again. But what if we took that webinar and used it across all departments? What happens if we take that single piece of content and turn it into several?
We could have:
- A blog post summarizing the webinar that can be optimized for search is shared across social networks and sent to everyone who registered for the webinar to re-engage them.
- Short clips from the webinar that can be shared on YouTube, added to the blog post, and embedded on landing pages for the sales team to use.
When creating assets, we have to think beyond search and consider how we can create something that benefits the organization as a whole.
5.- Use SEO data to report sales
We already talked about using sales data to inform your SEO strategy, but it also works the other way around.
As SEOs, we spend a lot of time on analytics that work to understand how our site is performing, what our visitors like, what they don't like, and where we can improve. We also spend a lot of time looking at search results and competitors.
How much of that are you sharing with your sales team?
During the monthly meeting mentioned above, make sure your sales team is aware of the following:
- High-performing content themes. They don't have to know the exact pieces of content, but if specific areas resonate with visitors, they can drive that topic during calls or share the materials with potential clients.
- Competitor updates or campaigns. Very few people are looking for one solution and one solution only. They are also looking at their competitors. The team should be aware of how competitors are performing, the type of messages they use, and any other updates coming from them.
- Customer comments or complaints. What do people say about you on the internet? What are the positive and negative aspects? By sharing this with the sales team, they can proactively address potential concerns and promote positive reviews.
Sharing information between departments will be of great help to the organization. While the three bullet points mentioned above may not seem significant to your efforts, they could be someone else's.
Conclusion
Aligning efforts across the organization, specifically between SEO and sales, can improve both teams and drive faster growth. It may not be easy to implement a process, but if you start with communication, the rest will follow.
