Let's look at the symbiotic relationship between marketing and sales. Marketing has the task of creating content to attract potential buyers. Those leads are then handed over to sales to ensure the "I want that!" becomes "I bought that!" Salespeople need marketers, and marketers need salespeople. 

Buyer awareness begins with marketing, but sales often end up with the hard numbers on how much money they brought in. Marketing is often left trying to answer the question of, "what did our efforts generate in terms of dollars for the company?" 

The best way to truly (and fairly) measure the effectiveness of both marketing and sales is by using closed-loop reporting. Better still, using this system only strengthens the relationship between both teams in your company. 

So where to start? Let's look at some the benefits and which platform we at Rizen recommend you adopt.

Benefits of Closed-Loop Reporting

The term "closed-loop" simply refers to the connecting efforts made by marketing to that of sales. Marketing passes on leads to sales, and in turn sales reports back on what happened with those leads. Instead of a one-way flow of information and tracking, the pipeline now flows back and forth, allowing both departments to effectively gauge the value of their efforts. Let's look at some immediate benefits closing the loop can have on your company's overall efficiency.

• Smarter Content Marketing - By creating a back-and-forth flow of data, your marketing team will know which content efforts attracted the best and worst leads, allowing them to make more informed content decisions in the future. Maybe that ebook attracted 100 downloads, but only 10 of those contacts converted to sales. By contrast, a webinar event attracted 25 people, converting 20 into paying customers. Guess where the focus will be from the marketing team for future campaigns? Think of the time (and money) your company saves by closing the loop!
• More Closed Deals from Sales - The more your sales team knows about a lead, the easier it will be to determine how best to close a sale with them. Time won't be wasted sharing information or resources leads have already shown they don't want or need. Arming your salespeople with information helps them better understand the people they are building relationships with, resulting in less time converting them into customers.
• See the Full Customer Journey -  Closed-loop reporting allows marketing teams to track every interaction an individual makes with your content. This includes page views, resource downloads, event signups, chats, emails, events signups, phone calls, and any other content you've created for someone to interact with. Closing the loop allows companies to truly understand the impact of paid marketing efforts on eventual sales.
• Build Transparency Between Departments - An effective way to build a stronger culture of transparency across departments is to have them share data. When both teams are gathering and accessing information from one another, communication and a need for trust develops. Marketing campaigns become team efforts because the success of one relies on the other. When that data on how each marketing campaign produced leads and sales in relation to cost,   everyone can clearly see and share the results of their work.

Adopting a Closed-Loop Reporting Platform

In order to effectively gather data on how customers are interacting with your marketing efforts, you'll need to begin using marketing automation software.

Often, your marketing and sales data use two different, completely unconnected products, and that's not a good framework for communication and collaboration. If you can adopt software that brings both marketing and sales together in one place, your company will benefit greatly.

That's why Rizen recommends you adopt Hubspot to unite your teams and integrate closed loop reporting effectively. We believe in using smart technology and the power of inbound marketing and Hubspot can help you integrate both!

A massive benefit of marketing within the HubSpot ecosystem is that all of your sales and marketing data is housed in one place. With all of that data consolidated into one stack, you’ve got the ability to run insightful and thorough reports that tie marketing and sales performance together in one data-rich environment.

Overall, HubSpot is an all-in-one inbound marketing and sales platform that will help your business close the loop, attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. 

Learn more about other strategies to reach today's digital-savvy customers by checking our our web guide on Inbound Marketing. We cover topics such as developing a company purpose, inbound principles, the buyer's journey, keyword research, content strategy, lead nurturing, and more!