The Gap Between Marketing and Sales That's Hurting Your Business

Most business owners I've spoken with say the same thing:

"Our close rate is super high once we actually get the right person in the room. We just need more quality sales opportunities."

You've probably thought the same thing. If you can just get the decision-maker on the demo call to show what your product or service can do, you'll close enough of them to hit your revenue goals.

The problem?

You don't get enough of those opportunities.

It's a common story.

And the truth is, you are probably right. If you can get the right person on the call, you are likely to close them. And what would an extra 5, 10, 20 calls per month do for your business? It's exciting to think about.

So why aren't you? You paid someone to build a new website for you. You've had marketers come and do, all promising different results. Why aren't you getting them?

Here's why: your website and marketing strategies aren't aligned with your business goals.

And there's the gap.

Understanding Why Marketing Campaigns Don't Deliver Sales Results

You might be saying to yourself, "What do you mean my marketing and website aren't aligned with my business goals? I've laid out all my products and services on the site. I'm advertising on social media. We've got our phone number and "Contact Us" button right there for everyone to see!"

To that I would say...This is exactly what I mean.

More than likely, you have invested in marketing—maybe even significantly. Whether you've got someone or a team in-house, or you've hired freelancers or agencies in the past, you've seen (and paid for) it all.

The website works great.

The social posts look sharp.

The custom designs you paid for are beautiful.

All of the links in your monthly newsletter have been double-checked.

....And yet, you have very little to show for it.

This is because owners and sales leaders are focused on the bottom of the funnel and revenue impact, yet most marketers are focused on the top of the funnel:

• Clicks

• Views

• Impressions

• Page Visits

• Keyword rankings
  

Of course, these are all important. These aren't vanity metrics (such as subscribers or comments), but they also aren't directly connected to revenue.

That's the gap between marketing and sales that's hurting your business.

Bridging the Gap: Aligning Marketing With Your Growth Goals   

There's a reason that many business owners see marketing as a cost center rather than a path to revenue. Nobody has ever shown them results that say otherwise.

And to be fair, this is probably the most challenging part of inbound marketing.

How do you turn page views into leads?

How do you turn clicks into closed deals?

How do you turn attention into revenue?

If you're a business owner, this is the conversation you need to be having with your agency or marketing team.

To effectively connect marketing efforts with tangible business outcomes, it’s essential to implement strategies that transform initial engagement into measurable revenue. Here are some actionable insights and recommendations to bridge the gap between marketing and sales:

To effectively connect marketing efforts with tangible business outcomes, it’s essential to implement strategies that transform initial engagement into measurable revenue. Here are some actionable insights and recommendations to bridge the gap between marketing and sales:

1. Prioritize Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Driving traffic to your website is one thing, getting visitors to convert once they get there is something totally different.

Here's a few ways that I see so many businesses get this wrong:

• Driving paid ads to the home page instead of a dedicated landing page designed to convert
• Not offering awareness-level content for the 90+% of site visitors who aren't ready to buy or even having a sales conversation
• Only utilizing bland, generic language on their CTAs. "Contact Us" is NOT a call to action!

So, how do you prioritize CRO?

Match content to intent. If what's on the page doesn't align with what the user expects to see when they click, your bounce rate is going to be super high.

Offer lead magnets for every stage of the buyer's journey. If the only thing a person can do when they get to your site is "Buy now," most of your visitors are going to leave without takign any action.

Try A/B testing: hone your messaging, CTAs, images, headlines, etc. until you figure out what works best for your audience and your goals.

2. Measure What Matters

Sure, volume-based metrics look good on spreadsheets and slide decks. Many of them are even useful—clicks, impressions, views, etc. are all worth tracking.

However, if you want to attribute provable ROI to your marketing spend, you need to track the metrics that move the needle on actual revenue and bottom-of-funnel impact.

What these are will vary for every business, but here are a few to get you started:

• Conversion rates: on ads, emails, CTAs, landing page forms, etc.
• Deal pipeline statistics (average deal size, acceleration rate, drop-off rate, etc.)
• High-intent keyword rankings
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
• Lifetime Value (LTV)
• AI Visibility

3. Own the Middle of the Funnel

"We need more leads!"

Sure, but how are you nurturing the leads you already have? How are you keeping them warm? How do you identify who signals that they may be ready for a sales outreach?

I can't tell you how many times I've spoken with a prospective client who has insisted that they have a lead gen problem, when they're sitting on thousands of leads in their CRM that they aren't nurturing. No emails, no automated workflows, nothing.

It takes many on average about 11 touch-points before a lead becomes a customer.

So, if you're looking to close more opportunities this quarter, there's likely some gold in your existing CRM that just needs to be identified and warmed up. Don't let your Sales team get away with, "Well, I reached out to the and they didn't respond. It must be a bad lead."

Own the middle of the funnel. Build systems for nurturing your leads, delivering ongoing value, building trust, identifying indicators of interest, and warming up leads for sales conversations. 

By the way, here's a look at an intentional, end-to-end customer journey I helped a client map through their marketing and sales process. Lead nurturing is a critical component of it. Yours doesn't have to be this sophisticated to start with, but start with something and build on it from there.

4. Facilitate A Feedback Loop Between Marketing and Sales Teams

It's an unfortunate reality that many organizations tolerate their Marketing and Sales teams being at odds with one another.

Sales: "We have a lead problem!"

Marketing: "No, we have a close rate problem!"

The best way to align these teams is to create a feedback loop that facilitates honest and productive conversations, such as:

• Where have our recent closed deals been sourced from? How can we get more of them?
• What's the average length of the sales cycle?
• Are there any collateral pieces that would be helpful for the Sales team (slide decks, 1-sheeters, web pages, etc.)
• When deals don't close, what are the common reasons why?
• Which marketing channels deliver the strongest ROI?
• How many colds leads are sitting in our CRM that might be fit for a re-engagement campaign to warm them back up?

In my experience, the most effective organizations are the ones that work together to solve these challenges, rather than be at odds with one another. Sales, Marketing, and the Leadership team are all in the room to talk about what's working, what's not, and what's going to get the best results moving forward.