2022 Annual Report

European State of Sales and Marketing Alignment

Where we are today

Post pandemic it seems like most companies are still struggling to align the two most important functions that drive business growth—Sales and Marketing. In many businesses both teams act like two different organisations that plan, execute, and optimise two separate processes for the same buyer’s journey.

As we enter another unstable economic climate, it is imperative to understand where Sales and Marketing departments stand in terms of alignment. Highspot conducted third-party research with Priestley and surveyed over 760 Sales and Marketing professionals in the UK, Germany and France with an organisation size of 250+ employees and the insights are telling.

Below are some key learnings. To find out more about what respondents said about the impact the lack of Marketing and Sales alignment brings, download the full report.

Employees in the UK are sounding the alarm

Sales and Marketing teams across the UK, France and Germany agree that implementing sales enablement is something their company should consider in the near future.

UK sales leaders identify engagement and retention of training as one of their biggest training challenges.

UK Marketers say creating marketing assets that have demonstrable success at meeting specific business objectives and driving sales growth is something they feel least confident in doing.

Despite the desire for Marketing and Sales teams to achieve greater alignment, there are significant challenges to overcome. These findings unravel key trends for sales-marketing relationships, the impact this has on revenue goals and what employees require to drive better alignment in order to confidently launch initiatives, engage buyers in the sales funnel, close deals, and drive efficient profit growth.

Misalignment impacts revenue growth

Marketing teams across the UK, France and Germany believe that a lack of alignment between sales and marketing has significantly impacted revenue.

It’s time for Sales and Marketing leaders to step up and drive change from the front for their teams. We can no longer afford to ignore the misalignment between Sales and Marketing strategies, efforts, and metrics. Now more than ever, it’s our shared obligation to understand their expectations and solve for them in order to build a high-quality end to end buying process,  achieve higher customer win rates, and retain competitive advantage.

The Northstar

An Aligned Sales and Marketing Team

It’s time to champion change and take action to transform this uncertain time into a profound opportunity that accelerates business growth.

Leaders must light the path for their employees with a holistic sales and marketing lead generation and customer acquisition strategy. When Sales and Marketing teams align together to drive performance, organisations become free to focus on a key component required to scale a company: Increasing revenue.

In this new era of communication, clarity and data, everyone wins.

Learn more about the European state of Sales and Marketing alignment in 2022, the steps you can take to future-proof your business and how to ensure your go-to-market teams are set up for success.

The latest report  will uncover how to:

  • Drive  cross-functional alignment
  • Build insights-driven sales systems
  • Effectively create and track content to ensure ROI
  • Leverage sales data to identify new training opportunities
  • Unlock  the power of sales enablement
  • Determine your organisation’s optimal path to revenue