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Ok, so a confession, the image is the chemical makeup of caffiene. I thought that was just too good to pass up! And I had to play with my new Zemanta plugin.

Something that shocks and quite honestly scares me is how few organizations have their Sales and Marketing teams really working well together. At Dreamforce I talked to company after company where the Marketing team has no insight to what Sales does and the Sales team has no insight to what Marketing does.

One thing we’ve accomplished since I stepped into the Marketing Specialist role at ADX is to really bring the two departments together. That’s not to say that every sales guy (or gal) here knows exactly what email campaigns or website changes we’re working on at any given moment, but we are watching each others results and communicating to see how we can make changes to get the best results in the long run.

Its certainly easier to do this in a smaller company like ours than it would be in a larger organization, but the principles are the same.

Align Your Goals from the Beginning

As a marketer, your goals may be different than the Sales team’s. In fact, your short term goals should be different than the Sales team’s goals. The important thing is to create challenging, but attainable goals together from the beginning. Decide how much pipeline you need to generate for Sales to have a chance at making their goals. Decide which mediums are most effective for reaching your potential leads and how your Sales team will learn of those leads.

Make a Schedule and Stick to It (or change it together)

Let your sales team know when you plan to run each ad, what the schedule for your email campaigns is, when the website changes will go live, and so on. Create a schedule that works for you and your Sales team, and then stick to that schedule. If you get into the schedule and things are moving too fast or too slow, then change the schedule together.

Keep Tabs on Each Other

Don’t be afraid to keep tabs on your Sales team. In fact, encourage them to do the same to you. Share reports, wins, and losses with each other and identify areas where you can help one another improve. If your Sales team tends to lose opportunities after they show a particular slide deck, rework the deck. If you get great click-through rates on your emails, but your Sales team isn’t following up with the leads, remind them that the campaign only works when they do their part.

Stop Problems Mid-Cycle

Don’t wait until the end of the quarter to address problems in your Marketing and Sales processes. Check in with each other weekly to see what’s working and what’s not. As a Marketer, you can help your Sales team understand how you are getting the word out about your brand or product, as a Sales team, they can provide you priceless feedback about how leads are responding to your efforts. But don’t wait until the end of the quarter to review, try having weekly calls or even email conversations to review progress and brainstorm new ideas together.

Sales and Marketing should work together, we’re all trying to achieve the same goal in the long run, so why not bond together and consolidate our efforts in the short term?

As a mom, and a mom who wore my baby (and still do when a stroller just isn’t convenient) I took no offense to the ad. I thought it was cute. But I can see how some would be offended by it.

I’m not going to spend time here debating whether or not Motrin did something wrong or dissecting the ad for its political and social correctness. What I am more interested in is the firestorm it sparked on Twitter…

Its a true testament to the effectiveness of social media. 5 years ago the ad would have come out, sparked few hundred one-on-one calls to the company, maybe a hand written petition to remove the ad from print and television, and may have been mentioned in a few telephone calls across the country. Now though, with the popularity of social media, the whole world gets to have a look inside the suggestion box, and the complaints to Motrin are fodder for more, and more, and more complaints.

Sure, a few people are “defending” Motrin, saying what’s the big deal, really. But those few don’t mean anything against the throngs of seething moms out there.

So what can we learn from Motrin’s mistake?

• Number one: know your audience.  That should go without saying.
• Number two: if you think your ad might piss someone off, tone it down, pull it, or only publish it to the groups you know will appreciate the questionable humor.
• Number three: this is a good one, so pay attention. Utilize social media to your advantage. Obviously, it works. Unfortunately for Motrin, it worked against them. Find something your customers can rally around and apply it (positively) to your product.

I only wish I worked for Tylenol right now. What a great campaign you could build around this story. Not only is Tylenol safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women, they have the opportunity to step in and look like the winners in this situation. To say they do not condone pill popping and would never label the moms that use their products. But they do understand that sometimes you need a little relief, no matter who you are.