In the US, 7 in 10 marketers are satisfied with their collaboration with other departments, according to the latest State of Marketing survey [download page] from Salesforce Research. In fact, respondents across all of the markets surveyed feel fairly confident about their collaborations with other departments, including sales.
More than two-thirds (69%) of respondents agree that marketing consistently provides sales with quality leads. The sales team might not agree, though: in a recent study, Altify found that while 61% of marketers felt their team was competent at delivering reasonable numbers of qualified sales opportunities, just one-third (34%) of salespeople agreed.
Nevertheless, marketers appear confident that they have a strong idea of their relationship with sales:
- 7 in 10 agree that they understand how marketing’s efforts impact individual accounts/customers; and
- 68% agree that marketing understands what sales needs to succeed.
Encouragingly, marketers are as likely to acknowledge that sales regularly provides key insights that shape marketing efforts (67%) as they are to claim that marketing shares data insights with sales (also 67%).
For more on the marketing-sales relationship, see these articles:
- B2B Marketers and Salespeople Point to Problems with Lead Management
- Which Content Assets Do Sales Request Most From Marketing?
Sales Isn’t Taking Advantage of Content. Here’s How Marketing Can Improve Its Efforts.
About the Data: The report is based on a survey conducted in April 2017 among 3,500 marketing leaders (manager or higher leadership role) in the US, Canada, Brazil, UK/Ireland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Australia/New Zealand. Some 57% of respondents come from companies with 101-3,500 employees, while 16% come from companies with more than 3,500 employees.
