Smarketing: Is it a real thing?

Smarketing. Sounds like a poor attempt at marketing humour, I know. Silly as it seems, smarketing is the name for integrating sales and marketing within your business. It’s also the new approach to lead nurturing.

We all know the ideal inbound lead generation method. Attract website visitors, convert them into hot leads and close them as customers. It’s every businesses dream to make the pipeline run smoothly. However, like any pipe, there can be clogs, leaks and rust.

As you are well aware, sales and marketing often disagree on what makes a qualified lead. Sales complain that the pipeline is clogged with poor quality leads. Marketing complain that sales are letting hard-earned leads leak through the pipe. In the past, these differences meant that the pipeline became rusty with not enough hot leads & prospects to help businesses thrive.

Then lead generation came into the picture.

Suddenly, there was a software solution that could help sales & marketing identify website visitors. This was helped along by lead scoring, which gave both teams a way of logically qualifying leads before they moved on to the next stage of the pipeline. It looked like lead generation was the high-powered solution that could bring sales and marketing together.

However, 96% of website visitors are not ready to buy the first time they talk to a salesperson, even if they are qualified and interested. Sales hit a brick wall. That’s why businesses have now turned to lead nurturing.

 83% of UK businesses have made lead nurturing their goal this year

With content marketing allowing leads to become informed consumers, they can decide on a product before they talk to a salesperson. Marketing can adapt their email campaigns to have dynamic content that gives each lead the information they are interested in. Marketing automation can make these email campaigns work in the background to develop a strong lead nurturing strategy too. With lead nurturing converting 50% more leads at a third of the cost of outbound methods, the statistics of smarketing speak for themselves.

For more articles like this, visit CommuniGator’s blog for sales & marketing inspiration.