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Sharing is Caring: Why We Need to Align Marketing and Sales

Geoff Webb,

Did you know that in many financial services organisations, the Chief Marketing Officer will often have the biggest IT budget? It might surprise you, but the reason is relatively straight-forward: in recent years there has been an immense investment in MarTech, and it’s made the discipline of marketing very tech-heavy. So much so in fact, that marketing departments now spend more time staring at dashboards, spreadsheets, and AI-fueled analytics than virtually any other part of the business.

It might also surprise you to hear that this trend is actually accelerating. Gartner research into CMO budget spend in 2018 revealed that as many as 57 percent of CEOs are prepared to invest more in marketing.

Yet, while this huge investment in technology has armed CMOs with an incredible level of insight (including what kinds of content you read online, where your mouse goes on their site, and so on), it has resulted in a rather one-sided technology investment, especially for B2B financial services firms who are eager to demonstrate to their customers that they both understand and care about them as individuals. It’s clear that the perception surrounding ownership of the technology budget needs to change.

Today, CRO’s (Chief Revenue Officers) face extraordinary pressure to transform their departments – especially in the face of a growing shift towards digital commerce models. A sales executive used to be able to rely on experience, insight, and interpersonal skills to close a deal and keep the customer buying. Today, that task is much more difficult. So, while marketing departments may be happily sailing on an ocean of usable data, their colleagues in the sales department may be struggling to respond to an explosive change in buyer behavior and expectations.

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