Almost half of Aussie businesses are failing to measure the impact of collaboration between their sales and marketing teams, while over a third say they don’t even know how to measure it, a new study by LinkedIn has found.
According to the research, 58 per cent of businesses surveyed said that good collaboration between their sales and marketing teams is resulting in revenue growth, while 49 per cent said it contributed to customer retention.
On the contrary, businesses said the main negative impacts of poor collaboration are missed opportunities (63 per cent) and customer frustration (48 per cent).
However, despite the fact that there is a strong indication that sales and marketing collaboration is driving outcomes for businesses, 42 per cent are failing to measure the impact of their collaboration.
Furthermore, 39 per cent of Aussie businesses do not know how to measure the impact of collaboration, while 45 per cent said their sales and marketing functions operate with different measurement metrics.
The study also found that 56 per cent of businesses cited shared objectives and KPIs as helping improve collaboration, but shared budgets and cross-skills training between teams did not.
Matt Tindale, LinkedIn’s head of enterprise for marketing solutions in the Asia-Pacific region, said it is clear from the research that a lack of understanding of the customer and channels of communication is where the divide between sales and marketing teams is most apparent.
“Focusing on the customer is key for both teams, as 73 per cent of businesses believe good collaboration is leading to positive impact on customer experience,” he said.
LinkedIn’s director of sales solutions for Australia and New Zealand, Mark Dick, said thate while the customer-buying journey is getting increasingly complex, it is promising to see that 67 per cent of businesses have mapped it out.
“What is concerning, however, is less than half of Australian businesses (42 per cent) are working together through all stages of their customer journey,” he noted.
“It is vital to be aligned so that they avoid any collaboration blind spots that might hurt their customer relationships.”
