Aligning Marketing and Sales Planning

How can I develop a planning process that allows marketing and sales to work in concert?

After the CEO sets the organization’s destination and strategic course, the marketing and sales leader must create and execute plans that align with corporate goals. SiriusDecisions helps b-to-b marketing and sales leaders select and refine their objectives based on their effectiveness in fueling the progress of the business.

What Our Clients Say

“[We’ve done] benchmarking comparing not just companies that are in our situation right now, but companies that have done what we intend to do…and that’s been so insightful and significant for us.”

Peter Rawlinson, Chief Marketing Officer, Datto

Datto built strategic alignment within sales and marketing to drive growth.

Read client story here

High-growth organization are 60 percent more likely to have a central planning process with strong alignment across marketing, sales and product stakeholders.<br /><br />–The SiriusDecisions Command Center®

Let Our Research and Advice Guide You

Identifying and focusing on the right priorities is vital to the success of this type of transformation. These areas of focus are the building blocks of successful implementation. Here are our recommended initial priorities for this transformation:

Demand Management Process

Go-To-Market Strategy

Marketing Planning and Budgeting

Marketing Strategy and Investment

Sales Planning

Key Issues

Issue One

Does marketing and sales work together to build their annual plan together?

Issue Two

Does the organization struggle to get sales plans in place prior to the start of the year?

Issue Three

Are current marketing campaigns not creating the right demand because the sales plan is not finished, in flux, or never communicated to marketing?

Issue Four

Does your sales leadership sponsor investment in marketing because it's clear how marketing resources are tied to the sales plan?

Issue Five

Are your demand creation or sales enablement efforts affected by poor annual planning?

Desired Outcomes

Marketing and sales are in the same room planning together as normal operating procedure

Marketing, product and sales agree upon the target audience segments and have approved go-to-market architecture before annual budgeting begins

A marketing and sales plan that outlines what sales needs to produce and what marketing must do to support it

We Can Help

SiriusDecisions helps clients solve their business challenges through a retainer-based subscription to b-to-b research with access to benchmark data and experienced practitioners. In the context of this transformation, we suggest supplementing your subscription with onsite strategy sessions and workshops. We start with an assessment of your organization’s capabilities and readiness, then provide integrated consulting and workshops that accelerate adoption and transfer knowledge throughout your organization.

Planning on a Page Workshop

Campaign Framework Workshop