In the Australian business landscape, the 'silo' mentality is a silent profit killer. When your marketing team is focused on clicks and your sales team is focused on quotas without talking to each other, you lose leads, waste budget, and frustrate potential customers. A Sales and Marketing Alignment (Smarketing) framework ensures both teams are rowing in the same direction, turning your business into a high-performance revenue engine.
Why Alignment Matters
Companies with strong sales and marketing alignment achieve 20% annual growth rates, while those with poor alignment see revenues decline. By synchronising these departments, you ensure that marketing generates the high-quality leads sales actually wants, and sales provides the feedback marketing needs to optimise their campaigns.---
Prerequisites: What You’ll Need
Before you sit down to build your framework, ensure you have the following:- Access to your CRM: (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive).
- Access to Google Analytics: To track traffic sources and conversions.
- Key Stakeholders: At least one senior representative from both Sales and Marketing.
- Historical Data: Last 6–12 months of lead volume, conversion rates, and average deal size.
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Step 1: Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Alignment starts with agreeing on who you are actually trying to reach. If Marketing is targeting small startups but Sales only wants enterprise-level clients with an ABN and 50+ employees, you have a fundamental disconnect. What you should see: Open a blank document or whiteboard. Detail the industry, company size, location (e.g., South East Queensland vs. National), and the specific pain points your product solves.Step 2: Establish Common Definitions (MQL vs. SQL)
This is where most Australian businesses stumble. You must define exactly what constitutes a lead at different stages.- Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): A lead that has engaged with marketing content but isn't ready to buy (e.g., downloaded a whitepaper).
- Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): A lead that meets specific criteria and is ready for a direct sales follow-up (e.g., requested a quote or booked a discovery call).
Step 3: Map the Customer Journey
Document every touchpoint a customer has with your brand. Start from the first Google search or social media ad, through to the website visit, the lead form submission, the first sales call, and finally, the closed deal.Pro Tip: Use a tool like Lucidchart or even a physical whiteboard to draw this out. Visualising the 'handover' point between teams is crucial.
Step 4: Create a Service Level Agreement (SLA)
An SLA is a formal commitment between both teams. It should outline:- How many leads Marketing will deliver each month.
- How quickly Sales will follow up on those leads (e.g., within 4 business hours).
- The number of follow-up attempts Sales must make before a lead is disqualified.
Step 5: Implement Lead Scoring
Work together to assign point values to different actions. For example, visiting a 'Pricing' page might be worth 20 points, while downloading a generic blog post is worth 5 points. When a lead hits a certain threshold (e.g., 50 points), they automatically move from MQL to SQL status in your CRM.Step 6: Set Shared Revenue Goals
Instead of Marketing being judged on 'leads' and Sales on 'revenue', give them a shared goal. When Marketing is incentivised by the actual dollar value of the deals closed, they focus much more on lead quality than lead quantity.Step 7: Centralise Your Data (The 'Single Source of Truth')
Ensure both teams are looking at the same dashboard. If Marketing uses one spreadsheet and Sales uses another, the data will never match. Use a CRM that integrates with your marketing automation tools so everyone sees the same customer history.Step 8: Establish a Feedback Loop
Schedule a fortnightly 'Smarketing' meeting. In this meeting, Sales should provide feedback on the leads from the previous two weeks. "The leads from the Facebook ad were looking for a cheaper DIY solution, not our premium service."* "The leads from the Brisbane Business Expo were high quality but took too long to respond."* This allows Marketing to pivot their strategy in real-time.Step 9: Align Content with Sales Needs
Marketing shouldn't just create content for the sake of it. Ask the Sales team: "What are the top 5 objections you hear on calls?" Marketing should then create content (case studies, FAQs, comparison guides) that Sales can use to overcome those specific objections during the closing process.Step 10: Track and Optimise
Review your framework monthly. Look at your 'Lead-to-Close' ratio. If it’s improving, your alignment is working. If it’s stagnant, revisit Step 2 and Step 5 to refine your lead definitions and scoring.---
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- The 'Blame Game': Avoid meetings where Marketing blames Sales for not closing, and Sales blames Marketing for 'bad leads'. Focus on the data, not emotions.
- Setting and Forgetting: An alignment framework is a living document. As your business grows or the Australian market changes, your ICP and SLA must evolve.
- Over-complicating Lead Scoring: Start simple. You can always add complexity later once you have more data.
Troubleshooting
Problem: Sales isn't following up on leads within the agreed SLA. Solution:* Check if the CRM notifications are working. Sometimes Sales simply doesn't know a lead has arrived. If tech isn't the issue, review the lead volume; they may be overwhelmed and need more automation or a higher qualification threshold. Problem: Marketing is hitting lead targets, but Revenue is down. Solution:* This usually means your lead definitions are too loose. Re-evaluate what qualifies as an MQL. You might be attracting 'tyre-kickers' rather than genuine buyers. Problem: Teams are still using different data sets. Solution:* Audit your integrations. Ensure your website forms, email marketing software, and CRM are all 'talking' to each other correctly.Next Steps
Now that you have the blueprint for alignment, it’s time to put it into practice. Start by booking a 60-minute workshop with your Sales and Marketing heads this week.If you need help auditing your current RevOps setup or integrating your CRM to support this framework, the team at Local Marketing Group is here to help. Contact us today to streamline your revenue operations.