By You already know KPIs shouldn't be a matter of sales versus marketing. Performance should overlap to drive leads and generate revenue. Yet for many businesses, marketing and sales can't even agree on what a SQL is. As a result, they end up with disjointed processes. Each misaligned B2B marketing key performance indicator they track puts them more at odds.
That does not make for a smooth hand-off.Now, let's paint a different picture. Sales and marketing work together to meet the same KPIs. That's not to say every single one overlaps. But the important ones do. You, then, have marketing-sales alignment, a seamless hand-off, and a pipeline that consistently delivers sales-qualified leads that both sales and marketing can agree on. To that end, these are the KPIs a unified marketing and sales team tracks together.
1. Cost Per Lead
Generally, marketing departments only look at marketing costs per lead. But this is like looking at half of an equation and expecting the right answer. It doesn't matter how cost-effective the lead generation is if the leads get to sales and experience a long, high-touch sales cycle and low, close rate. The B2B marketing department's role should be to reduce costs in both sales and marketing.
This happens when the marketing department and sales agree on what a SQL is and use marketing automation to identify and handoff leads at the right time.
You can take this marketing-sales alignment even further to get costs down by working with sales to generate sales enablement content. This kind of content takes a self-service approach to managing common objections and helping customers clarify their needs and options — all before reaching sales.
Sales also has this content on hand to send customers who are looking for more information. They can send it with a click and follow up later, creating great efficiency. Increasingly, B2B customers enjoy self-service research as part of the sales process, so this is giving customers what they want.
2. Customer Retention
This is one marketing, sales, and service key performance indicator we should all agree is the key to business success.
What happens when marketing and sales are over-promising, creating unreasonable expectations, or attracting/closing the wrong types of customers? What do you get if the service cannot efficiently support customers and solve problems? The whole B2B technology company suffers.
But when everyone tracks this key performance indicator and recognizes their interconnected role in increasing it, everyone wins, including your customers.
3. Marketing ROI
Sales should know that just because a key performance indicator has the word "marketing" doesn't mean it isn't something both divisions should track.
Since marketing ROI includes customer value and that is only achieved if sales closes the deal, this KPI, perhaps above all others, tells you the effectiveness of marketing-sales alignment, something both marketing and sales want to achieve.
4. Sales Qualified Leads + Lead to Close Ratio
In marketing-sales alignment, both departments keep a close eye on the number of SQL and the lead-to-close ratio. Together, these are strong indicators of how well the teams work together to meet big business goals.
5. Average Order Value, Upsell and Cross-Sell, and Customer Lifetime Value
These are interrelated, so you may track one or all three across departments. When B2B marketing is effectively doing its job by setting clear customer expectations and getting buyers excited about the B2B technology, those customers spend more, and they stay customers longer.
6. Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is a big win for both teams. It means that the word is getting out there, and people are coming straight to you when they see you in a search result. Through inbound marketing content, you're getting customers comfortable with the B2B tech solutions you offer, managing objections, troubleshooting customer problems, and generating social word-of-mouth.
In marketing, this means lower customer acquisition costs and sending more/better-qualified leads to sales.
In sales, more organic traffic means many of the common sales objections and explanations have already been managed. You're just here to close the deal. Sales and service contribute to organic traffic by offering one-on-one support that delights and wins over customers. Those same customers write favorable reviews that increase social proof. This directly increases organic traffic and increases the quality of traffic entering the top of the funnel.
7. Sales Revenue
Once again, the word "sales" doesn't mean this doesn't relate to B2B marketing in a team focused on marketing-sales alignment. When the sales department knocks their sales revenue projections out of the park, that reflects on the team as a whole.
B2B Marketing-Sales Alignment Through Key Performance Indicators
We know marketing-sales alignment is important to you. But it's not as easy as it looks on paper when it happens in real life.
Agreeing upon key performance indicators and helping the whole team understand how they contribute to that KPI is a great start. Marketing automation, sales enablement content, and inbound marketing are three essential tools you can use to increase this alignment now.
