What is smarketing
This blog post is designed to cover the basics of smarketing and why it is important to small business owners.
Smarketing is quite simple really, it is the merging of sales and marketing functions in your business.
If that's all you were looking for, we are done. But it you want to learn why its important to your business keep reading.
Smarketing is a term that has been around for a number of years now, it is not a new buzzword for 2015.
If we take a quick look at where we have come from it might give us a little bit of some context for why this is important today.
So traditionally sale and marketing were very much separate functions in a business and depending on the size was headed up by either one or 2 directors. Now there was some overlap of course and we have generally linked the two departments. So we were always smarketing? Not quiet.
Marketing's function traditionally was to raise and increase awareness of a brand and its product. This may be using advertising, trade shows, direct mail and similar activities.
The sales team were often split into two teams of telesales and sales managers. The telesales teams would approach hundreds and thousands of businesses every day in the hope to secure a sale or an appointment. In the case of the appointment the sales manager or field sales guys and girls would then meet the prospect and try and sell their product or service. This was a numbers game and for years it worked for the year we were in at the time.
There was very little collaboration between the two departments and very little need.
Fast forward to 2015 and the world has changed considerably. The sales process is now between 59% and 75%+ online. We live in a self serve environment and we expect to be able to educate ourselves in our own time where we want.
We want more and more information and we want it faster, push based and interruption based marketing is having less and less effect year after year.
Today marketing professionals need to understand more about sales, and sales folk need to understand more about marketing. These teams need to be working as one, hence the term smarketing.
Getting these two departments to work as one is not an easy feat and needs the correct education and resources to make it happen. How many people and what skills are dependant on your industry, your current resources and willingness to change.
The third member of this team is technology but more on that in tomorrows blog.
Today you may want consider how your team is setup, and  understand your sales process and buyers journeys to determine the new look of smarketing.
This is not the end of sales teams at all, sales is still the most important function in a business, its just changed and in fact we are all in sales weather or not we like it or not.
What smarketing will bring you in an aligned team where everybody is working towards the same goal. That goals is more often than not "leads and sales". If the marketing folk understand what makes a qualified lead they can deliver great leads to sales. If the sales folk understand where the tipping point is in a buyers journey, they can work with marketing to provide the questions the prospects are asking and ensure that marketing answer that question online in the appropriate place. Even better if the sales people become the faces the prospects get to know. If the sales people start blogging and vlogging and even better podcasting they become the trusted face the prospect or customer buys from.
Smarketing is an exciting opportunity for sales people and marketing teams too. Providing an amazing experience throughout the entire process is key to business going forward and getting these teams aligned is the first step.
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.