Too many organizations view sales and marketing as two distinct and wholly independent departments. But this type of silo marketing — having specific channels or agencies working separately rather than integrating their efforts or forgetting to include the Sales Managers with a seat at the table — means missing out on a huge opportunity.

The truth is that by partnering with a marketing team, sales departments can benefit greatly. And combining the two is especially effective for group sales, which are the focal point of any DMO. Especially for your stakeholders.

Let’s look at why this is the case. Here are the most important benefits of sales and marketing working together:

1. Better Leads with Less Effort

When marketing and sales teams work together, your organization can lower its cost per lead (CPL) while bringing in more quality leads. Here’s how:

• High-quality marketing and sales techniques will complement each other. Sales teams can better clue marketing into the target buyer, and marketing can better communicate their process.
• Sales teams can provide valuable insight on target buyer personas and other details that marketing might not consider. By better understanding the people you want to reach through collaboration, marketing can plan the most effective path to sales. Collaboration avoids the “missed pitch.” Example: A new hotel in town that’s nice for leisure travelers but has no meeting space is useless to the sports or meeting manager attending Connect for One-on-One’s.
• When both departments work together, communication with and to the customer improves. The entire organization will spend more time targeting qualified leads and less time chasing bad leads. The sales team spends one on-one-time with meeting planners often traveling together. Sales teams can give insight on why a meeting planner may or may not respond to ads with attractions/beaches etc. Example: A marketing manager uses a photo of the football stadium that can’t be rented then sends the collateral with the sports manager on the road. He is unable to use this because he cannot sell that stadium. He needs the local baseball fields instead. This is what happens most often.

Plus, marketing can increase awareness for all sectors of your destination and build interest with potential buyers from the start. This can help move difficult leads from cold to warm. The sales team’s process becomes smoother, improving lead conversion rates.

A sales-marketing duo can also help destination organizations reach meeting planners and other decision-makers who determine event destinations.

2. You Stay Ahead of the Curve

Feedback between sales and marketing teams is invaluable! If you want to cover all bases in your travel marketing strategies, make sure sales and marketing are communicating.

Sales teams might struggle to see how certain marketing efforts are impacting leads and sales. In the same way, marketers may have trouble looking beyond the numbers. For example, sales teams can let marketing know if they or customers are having issues with ads, emails, social media posts, or other steps in the marketing funnel.

This collaboration means you stay up-to-date on the best tools, tactics, and strategies for your target travelers, ensuring your organization doesn’t fall behind.

3. Increased Revenue

Sales-marketing alignment can increase revenue by 208 percent, according to HubSpot. And misalignment between both costs $1 trillion per year.

Clearly, having sales and marketing work together is crucial for your Stakeholders bottom line.

And it makes sense:

• Marketing teams will keep up with the most current trends, compare efforts against the competition, and make sure salespeople understand the reasoning behind marketing tactics.
• When sales teams stay informed about marketing processes, they can better communicate with potential buyers about their offerings.

It’s time for DMOs to break away from segmented sales and marketing efforts. Consider the benefits on your organization of having both teams in sync and working towards the same goals.

Could your organization benefit from a better connection between sales and marketing? Advance Travel & Tourism routinely works with sales teams to nail down the most efficient marketing strategies for DMOs.

From content curation to video marketing, social media marketing, and analytics, every step of our marketing approach is audience-first.