The success of campaigns launched by contracting businesses almost always depends on the marketing and sales teams working together at peak efficiency. The problem is that while their interests overlap, marketing and sales are often unintentionally misaligned. 

To get your marketing and sales teams to understand each other better and, ultimately, convert more leads into sales, try these tips. 

Uniform Language

Each team should have the same terminology for leads to easily distinguish between different phases of the funnel. When you ask marketers about leads, they point to the large number of customer inquiries generated from ads, the website, trade shows, word of mouth, and third-party providers. Salespeople, on the other hand, may not consider a lead workable until they’re in touch with someone who is seriously interested in a roof replacement.  

A common practice is to define and create names for different levels of leads both teams can use together. For example, many contractors use a progression that spans marketing and sales, which uses terms both should be familiar with.

• Inquiry or initial lead (Lead): This is the broadest category of homeowners who have been acquired from digital ads, website clicks, or a lead aggregator. 

• Marketing qualified leads (MQL): These are inquiries that have shown at least some level of interest in a roofing project. 

• Sales qualified leads (SQL): These are homeowners that have progressed through specific filters such as timeframe to start, budget, and urgency. 

• Opportunity: An opportunity is a homeowner lead that has already had an appointment and is ready for a proposal or contract. 

Define Conversion Factors

Your marketing and sales teams need to have goals for each lead stage. As leads progress from marketing to sales, the teams should understand how their metrics are part of the overall picture. If your plan is to book 10 roofing projects, your goals cascade through the funnel as follows: 

• Leads: If 33% of raw leads show enough activity to convert to MQLs, then 360 will be needed to make this funnel work. 

• MQL: If 50% of MQLs qualify for conversion into SQLs, then 120 MQLs will be needed to yield 60 SQLs.

• SQL: If the conversion rate from SQLs to opportunities is 50%, then 60 SQLs will be needed to have 30 opportunities.

• Opportunities: If the sales team converts a third of their proposals, then 30 opportunities are needed to yield 10 sales.

These are round conversion rates and simplified numbers as examples. The key is to let everyone know how their volume and conversion rates are part of an overall process. When each team knows how their numbers fit into the whole funnel, the metrics make more sense, and it’s easier to embrace and optimize. 

Cross Training Programs

Encourage cross-team understanding with regular face-to-face meetings between sales and marketing teams to provide opportunities for collaboration. Use the meetings to share performance against goals and for the teams to compare notes on messaging, areas of opportunity, and barriers they’re facing.  

You should also schedule times for marketing to listen in on sales calls. This can enhance understanding of the company’s target market, customer needs, and your company’s value proposition. 

You can also hold training sessions that educate each team on the other’s responsibilities and priorities. Training can include a module on how marketing sources leads and what engagement takes place before sales get involved. Marketing needs to be taught what it takes for a salesperson to convert leads into paying roofing customers. 

When both marketing and sales are aligned, and speaking the same language, a common ground and a key understanding of each other are formed. When that happens, each campaign a roofing contractor executes stands a much better chance of business-building success.