There is a demarcation point between marketing and sales when a prospective buyer becomes a
marketing qualified lead and is handed off to sales.
From a buyer’s perspective, there are 2 major phases to the buying cycle. There is the
pre-contact stage and the contact stage. The pre-contact stage is the information
gathering stage. It is here that the buyer does research to better understand both the
issue and the potential solutions. During this stage they will qualify suppliers and narrow
things down to a short list.
And then they will move to the contact stage. At the contact stage, there will be a set of
pre-developed expectations that the buyer brings with them. Many buyers often say that they
do not want to waste the vendor’s time, if they do not see a way forward in their buying
journey. So once they feel a need to make contact with a vendor, it is with definite
purpose. It is now the information seeker who is turning into a prospective buyer. And now
the stakes become greater.
On the other side of the fence, on the vendor’s side, there is both marketing and sales
activities which are going on. During the buyer’s pre-contact stage, the marketing
resources are executing activities to furnish the information seeker with various forms of
information content to fulfill that research need. It is natural that the company’s sales
resources are held at bay. The information gathering could go for a long time, and it may
be hard to tell if the information seeker will become a prospective buyer. When the
information seeker makes meaningful contact with the vendor, marketing resources must
recognize it and identify it as a marketing qualified lead. And then they hand off this
marketing qualified lead, to the sales resources.
This hand-off becomes the demarcation point between marketing and sales. Why does this
hand-off even occur, you may ask. Well, it is all about efficiencies. Marketing must be
conducting their activities for the masses, the market as a whole. The marketing message
must go out far and wide, across different channels, with the goal of drawing out all
prospective beneficiaries to the company’s offerings. Hence, marketing’s performance needs
to be assessed based on how effective they are in developing demand. Sales, on the other
hand, must be able to focus their complete energies on qualified prospective buyers. With a
buyer at this stage, there will be uncertainties and obstacles that need to be carefully
navigated by sales. And sales performance will then be measured by different criteria than
marketing.
This is all fine in an ideal world. But, the demarcation point may not always be a clear
point. Rather it may very well be a demarcation zone. A region where the information seeker
is in fact converted to a prospective buyer. And in order to make this conversion happen,
both marketing and sales must be sure that they both have one hand holding the lead. It
means a shared ownership of the transition process. Marketing needs to stay in the picture,
while sales can strengthen their grip and establish a foundation for growing this newly
minted prospective buyer. And if it turns out that the information seeker is not really a
prospective buyer yet, then marketing must take them back with both hands.
The ability to manage all those who are responding to your marketing message is key to
maximizing your sales. But to make it work, both marketing and sales resources must be
operating as a team in the demarcation zone. Both must have a clear understanding of what
defines their prospects, and communication between them must be continuous and smooth. If
this is done right, marketing will not give low quality leads to sales, and sales will not
lose those leads which may have entered into contact with them prematurely.