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The State of Marketing and Sales Alignment 2022

How companies are driving growth with a seamless customer experience

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Executive Summary

Are your marketing and sales teams aligned? And how does that level of alignment positively or negatively impact the customer experience? Do your tools and data support the alignment you desire? What are the top complaints from sales about the marketing department? What are the top complaints from marketing about the sales department?

When we fielded the State of Marketing and Sales Alignment 2022 Survey, we wanted to dig deep into the topic to find the root of the issues and provide insight and data to initiate true change.

The Marketing and Sales Alignment research study reveals that 74% of those surveyed feel that their tools cause misalignment between marketing and sales. And the biggest consequence of a failure to align marketing and sales efforts is leads that don’t convert.

Misalignment also impacts the entire buying journey and 86% agree that not having a single source of data hinders an organization’s ability to fully understand the customer journey.

In the report that follows, we provide data on the problem, the benefits of alignment, the impact on the buying journey, complaints from both sales and marketing, and insights on what a unified view looks like and steps you can take to improve your marketing and sales alignment.

Key Highlights

  • Only 20% of organizations have the ability to track the entire customer lifecycle end-to-end but those who do report having significantly better customer experiences.
  • Organizations with strongly or totally integrated marketing and sales tools deliver better customer experiences than those who report having only partially or not at all integrated systems.
  • Improving workflows is the top digital transformation initiative in the coming year.
  • 93% of strongly or totally integrated teams feel confident in their tools and data to provide insight into what’s yielding sales and customer growth, compared to only 56% of less integrated teams.

Research conducted by Ascend2 and SharpSpring.
Published April 2022. N = 329 U.S. B2B professionals.

A little about SharpSpring:

If you’re not familiar with SharpSpring, we’re a revenue growth platform with a powerful suite of sales & marketing automation tools to help you boost conversions and deliver results.

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