How marketing can best help sales: Lessons from 20+ years in technology sales

Will you hit your sales goals this year? That’s the burning question on many minds, especially as the year progresses and the pressure to close deals intensifies. It’s a question we hear often: How can marketing help us hit our target numbers? 

Before I founded Mercer-MacKay as a marketing agency, I spent over 20 years in technology sales. I wasn’t just selling new products—many of which no one had ever heard of—I was usually doing it from the platform of a boutique system integrator that were themselves unknown entities.  

This experience taught me a lot about how marketing and sales can work together to open doors and close deals. 

Key tactics to fuel sales success

Here are the key tactics we’ve embedded in our marketing strategies that directly fuel sales success: 

#1 Don’t sell to IT—Sell to the line-of-business buyer

I quickly learned that if I wasn’t already a budgeted line item for a VP of IT, I was more of a nuisance than a solution. The IT department is often overwhelmed, working tirelessly just to keep the lights on. But line-of-business (LOB) buyers? They’re different. They’re focused on solving specific problems, driving revenue, and achieving business outcomes. When they see how your solution can deliver a solid ROI, they’re more likely to find the budget you need. 

Marketing’s role: Focus on content and messaging that speaks directly to the pain points and goals of LOB buyers. Include research to show that you understand the trends and how external and internal pressures are impacting your buyer’s role. IT buyers are important, but you need to start conversations with the stakeholders who can actually drive change. 

Mercer-MacKay program – Industry-led campaigns: By running a campaign that is focussed specifically on an industry and related use-cases, you can quickly identify where and how your solution might best fit. These campaigns can be small or large, depending on your goals and your budget. 

#2 Understand the industry of your line-of-business buyer

LOB buyers aren’t as interested in your technology as they are in your ability to have a meaningful business conversation. This means you need to know their industry inside and out. You need to show them that you understand their world, their challenges, and their opportunities. 

Marketing’s role: Create industry-aligned content—whether it’s case studies, demos, webinars, or white papers—that positions your organization as a knowledgeable player in the space. “Borrow” industry knowledge by inviting an industry thought leader to a webinar. Many of them have “speaking” goals and this can be helpful to them. When your sales team can leverage content that speaks the language of the buyer’s industry, it opens doors to deeper, more valuable conversations. 

Mercer-MacKay program – Industry bill of materials: Taking one of your horizontal offerings that your sales teams are familiar with and modifying it to create an industry-focussed set of collateral not only helps you connect with business buyers, but it also eases your sales teams into having business conversations (especially if they are typically more comfortable with IT decision makers). This is a great and gradual way to increase the confidence of a sales team while expanding your target audience. 

 #3 Give sales great reasons to start conversations

Sales teams need compelling reasons to reach out to prospects—something that goes beyond the standard pitch. Marketing’s job is to create content and events that spark dialogue and interest. Ideally, sales need something “new” every quarter so that it gives them a compelling touchpoint at least four times a year. There is nothing worse for a salesperson who is reaching out to “catch-up” but doesn’t really have anything new or interesting to offer. It limits their ability to add value to a conversation with a prospect and can be perceived by sales as negatively impacting their reputation. Great salespeople sell on the strength of their relationships and they will not jeopardize that. 

Marketing’s role: Develop offers, white papers, workshops, or exclusive events that are time-bound and actionable. When you give sales teams tools that create urgency—like a limited-time offer or an exclusive workshop—you equip them to have meaningful conversations with prospects who might be ready to take the next step. 

Mercer-MacKay program – Content and events: We specialize in creating content and offers that salespeople can use. We are skilled at putting together small in-person events and even have a BDR team that can drive attendance. 

#4 Nurture needs to be ongoing

Marketing teams work tirelessly to fill the funnel, but the reality is that sales teams want more than marketing-qualified leads (MQLs). They want ready-to-close opportunities. However, it’s important to remember that you can’t close a deal if you don’t first engage a prospect. Ergo, you’ve got to always nurture. 

Marketing’s role: Keep the nurture engine running. Make sure you’re continuously engaging prospects along the journey, so when they’re ready to make a decision, they’re thinking of you. This ongoing effort keeps the pipeline warm and ensures a steady flow of opportunities for the sales team. It is (often) a thankless task that marketing needs to do. The constant nurturing means you are top-of-mind when the challenge your company can solve leaps to the top of your buyer’s “to-do” list. 

Mercer-MacKay program – Content cadence: Even with GenAI, coming up with fresh, meaningful and actionable content isn’t easy. Our content creation programs can be tailored to your size and budget and allow us to act as an extension of your team. 

#5 Focus on mid- to late-stage activities

In today’s climate, the emphasis is on closing business in the next 30, 60 or 90 days. This means that marketing needs to lean in toward activities that directly support deal acceleration, especially for mid- to-late-stage prospects. 

Marketing’s role: Create and promote customer case studies, workshops, proof-of-concepts (PoCs), meetings and events that bring sales teams and prospects together and that talk about how other customers have already solved the problem. These interactions are where deals are won. The more creative and engaging these activities and content are, the more they’ll help move prospects closer to a decision. 

Mercer-MacKay program – Case studies, win wires, offers and events: We can help you document your customer stories/win wires and work with your team and the sales team to create a workshop or event that will enable sales to more easily connect with customers. 

Incorporating these strategies into your marketing efforts will not only help align your team with sales, but also drive the kind of results that make hitting those sales goals a reality. Remember, marketing isn’t just about generating leads—it’s about creating the conversations and opportunities that close deals. 

At Mercer-MacKay we have several programs that support many of these activities. Reach out and we can discuss over a virtual coffee how we might be able to help you.