Running an Effective Sales & Marketing Meeting (+ Template)

With the rapid changes in the business world, close collaboration between sales and marketing team is of great importance. 

The marketing team creates the right messaging and brings in more leads, while the sales department focuses on converting the leads and making profits. According to 87% of sales and marketing leaders, the alignment between these teams is crucial for business growth. 

Therefore sales and marketing meetings are needed, which present an excellent opportunity to strengthen this partnership and improve the performance of both teams.

What Is a Sales and Marketing Meeting（smarketing)?

The sales and marketing meeting, also called smarketing meeting, is a periodic meeting between the sales and marketing team to foster open communication and alignment. It is held regularly to review campaign performance, discuss problems, and get updates on the progress of shared goals. 

The initial collaboration takes place between the leaders of both teams. For instance, the marketing and sales directors get together to define goals and set marketing and sales strategies that generate more revenue for the business.

After the first couple of alignment meetings, the other team members from both departments join in the meetings. Most team members prefer to have an open feedback loop and critical takeaways to make these meetings successful.

What to Include in a Sales and Marketing Team Meeting Agenda?

Having a well-prepared agenda can be the difference between a productive meeting and one full of chaos. A meeting agenda defines the meeting goals and outline the topics to be discussed to keep everyone on the same page.

Let us look at the key topics that should be included in a sales and marketing meeting and make it engaging and productive.

Sales/marketing updates

It is good to start the meeting with important news to get everyone excited. 

For instance, if there is any major event coming up or the company is sponsoring a conference, it is essential to give a heads-up to the teams so that they can gear up for the challenge. 

SLA performance

Did you know that 60% of people believe that the misalignment between the sales and marketing teams can have an adverse effect on the financial performance of an organization? Sales and marketing SLA (service level agreements), as an agreement that specifies each team’s responsibilities and goals, is an essential step for aligning these teams and is the backbone of a smarketing meeting. 

It is crucial to review SLA at least once during each smarketing meeting. For the best results, avoid making a lengthy document but keep it precise and straightforward. The aim is to make both teams work constructively to achieve the organization's revenue goals, as well as the goals of each team.

If you have one service record that everyone has agreed to, then there is no grey area. It is black and white.                                                                     

                                                     -Alex Turner, Director of Business Development for Wrike

Content, campaign, and competition review

This part of the meeting is dedicated to discussing planned, in-progress, or upcoming campaigns and messaging and specifying how the sales team can make the most of it. 

Marketing should also inform the sales team of what content is working well with the customers and any popular deals going on. This makes it easier for salespeople to prioritize the messaging and tactics for reaching out to prospects and nurturing leads. And the sales team should do vice versa.

Leave time for competitive analysis if anything new should be shared within the teams, which helps both teams build better business strategies and capture the market.

Customer engagement and trends

With the post-pandemic changes in the global scenario, companies are rethinking their marketing and selling techniques. Understanding the buyers and anticipating their unique needs and expectations is the way to move forward. 

So, the sales team can share their insights with respect to buyer engagement while the marketing team can highlight what topics are trending in the market and the content best suited for discussions with prospects and customers.

Highlight success

Your team works hard to achieve the goals, and celebrating their success is a great way to motivate them. 

Highlight the accomplishments of people who have worked collaboratively to encourage the alignment of both teams. For instance, a salesperson who created a successful pitch using marketing materials can motivate the team with their insights.

Tips for Effective Sales and Marketing Meetings

Here are some pointers that will help you organize and run a successful smarketing meeting.

Develop a collaborative agenda

Since members from different teams are included in the discussion, it’s necessary to create an agenda that get everyone to contribute to it. For instance, the team leads outline the general topics, and others can input their thoughts collaboratively, which can be simply done with a meeting agenda tool.

Also, send the agenda to all attendees at least one day in advance so that they can come prepared and engage in productive discussions. 

Focus on key metrics

Smarketing operates at every stage of the sales funnel, so it is important to analyze this crucial data in every meeting. It will let the team know what is working with the prospects and customers and what is not. 

Moreover, leaders should keep a tab on the performance of both teams. Refer to the SLA to ensure that the revenue targets are being met. Remember that tracking the critical metrics religiously will help improve your profitability. 

Meet regularly and share feedback

The focus of the smarketing meeting is to foster alignment, but it can be challenging to be on the same page every time. Research indicates that 90% of sales and marketing professionals believe that there is a disconnect among these teams when it comes to content, strategy, process, and culture.

So, the teams should get together weekly or bi-weekly to discuss problems and track outcomes. Regular communication is helpful in building trust and in getting clarity regarding goals and expectations.

Also, encourage people from both teams to share feedback regarding the challenges they are facing and the areas of improvement. This feedback can be used to improve the strategy to engage with customers in a better way.

Keep the CRM reports ready

As you are ready to meet your colleagues from the other team, it is essential to pull out the customer relationship management tool (CRM) of your organization, which helps you manage all your interactions with prospects and customers.

The sales team can use the CRM reports to know if a lead has made any recent interactions with your organization. Moreover, this tool enables the marketing team to track the various stages of the customer journey.

Close each meeting with clear action items

Action items can help you keep track of decisions made in the meeting. So, leave time at the end of each meeting to make a list of tasks the teams have to accomplish and assign them to specific persons with a clear timeline to maintain accountability.