Unifying marketing and CRM software
Marketing and sales teams should collaborate more effectively to build a high-velocity sales pipeline, close deals faster, and accelerate business growth. To achieve this, you need a system that helps marketing and sales communicate, visualize the buyer’s journey, and combine data from both teams to generate meaningful insights. With Zoho Marketing Plus, you get a unified platform that integrates seamlessly with your existing sales tools, enabling better collaboration and higher ROI.
Get StartedHow sales and marketing teams can collaborate better
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Marketing and sales teams often operate at silos. But high-performance organizations know the truth: when marketing and sales pull together in the same direction, they can move mountains. Collaboration is no longer optional; it’s the key to predictable growth. On this page, learn how marketing and sales can collaborate effectively—both in practice and with sales and marketing software integrations.
Set up a common communication channel
When sales and marketing teams share a dedicated channel, collaboration becomes natural. They can:
- Discuss leads in real time
- Share updates on important demos
- Request or collaborate on customized decks that marketing can quickly build
- Exchange feedback on content strategies and customer touchpoints
This two-way flow helps marketing align efforts with what truly drives revenue.
At Zoho, all sales requests come through email. The marketing team then highlights familiar names or high-value deals in the common channel. This ensures sales teams never miss critical opportunities and reinforces that marketing is actively supporting them throughout the deal cycle.
Visualize the end-to-end buyer’s journey
Both marketing and sales teams need a unified dashboard or platform that gives complete visibility into every buyer’s journey.
With the right CRM and marketing solution integration, your team can see how the journey began, identify the buyer’s current stage, and estimate the timeline for conversion.
At the same time, track the exact number of touchpoints—ads, landing pages, content, and webpages—analyze engagement patterns, and use prior data to align marketing and sales for managing a high-velocity pipeline. With this single source of truth, marketing can plan the right nurturing campaigns, while sales can prepare more personalized and effective meetings.
Measure the right metrics—together
Traditionally, marketing and sales measure success differently.
For instance, marketing tracks metrics such as website traffic, demo or meeting requests, free trial sign-ups, and direct purchases generated. Meanwhile, sales focuses on deal closures, time taken to close each deal, and related outcomes. These metrics are often siloed and don’t provide a complete view of the buyer lifecycle.
With the right system enabling seamless data exchange between sales and marketing, those isolated metrics can be transformed into meaningful insights—such as:
- Lead-to-revenue time
- Average lead acquisition cost
- Opportunity cost
- Funnel conversion rates
When both teams align on these KPIs, they create shared accountability. Marketing owns top-of-funnel growth, while sales drives bottom-of-funnel conversions. Together, they gain clear visibility into how every effort contributes to revenue—making success a shared victory, not a divided scoreboard.
Shadow a few sales calls
Customer interaction shouldn’t be seen as the sole responsibility of the sales team. Marketers can gain valuable insights by joining a few sales calls to:
- Understand the real concerns and motivations of customers
- Identify gaps in messaging or content that could support sales
- Build empathy for both the sales team and the customer’s journey
By experiencing conversations first-hand, marketing teams can design more effective campaigns, refine messaging, and create content that directly addresses customer pain points. This not only strengthens marketing strategies but also fosters deeper alignment with sales.
Conduct regular sales-marketing meetings
Consistent communication is the glue that keeps sales and marketing aligned. Regular meetings help both teams:
- Share what’s working and what’s not
- Discuss challenges and brainstorm solutions
- Align on upcoming campaigns, deals, and priorities
- Build rapport and mutual trust
When sales and marketing engage frequently, they move beyond transactional updates and begin working as one unified team.
Keep studying and optimizing
There’s no one-size-fits-all framework for marketing and sales collaboration. What works for one organization might not work for another. That’s why continuous learning and iteration are key. Both teams should regularly review their processes, study performance data, and refine strategies to stay aligned with changing buyer behaviors. Collaboration isn’t a one-time setup—it’s an ongoing practice of testing, learning, and optimizing together.
Connecting your CRM with marketing software
Data exchange
The effectiveness of sales and marketing team collaboration depends on how well your marketing platform and CRM are integrated.
If you already have a CRM and a marketing platform in place but they aren’t connected, start with this:
Data exchange (interoperability) refers to how well your marketing solution integrates with your sales system.
Two-way data exchange: Data should flow seamlessly between your CRM and marketing software. For example, if you run a webinar on a marketing platform, registrations should automatically sync to your CRM as prospects. If they make a purchase, the conversion record should update in the marketing solution as well.
Real-time updates: Information between your marketing and sales applications should sync instantly, without delays.
Custom field mapping: The marketing software should allow CRM fields to align with your existing practices. For instance, if you track "purchases" as a "revenue" field in your CRM, the marketing software should be able to read and capture it with minimal setup.
Compliance and security
When integrating your CRM with marketing software, it’s essential to follow compliance and security best practices to keep your business running smoothly.
Data encryption: Ensure that any sales data pushed into the marketing software is encrypted - stored in an unreadable format for unauthorized users.
Regulatory compliance: Data storage should comply with local laws. For example, countries in the EU follow GDPR, which provides guidelines on how data must be stored, handled, used, and managed.
Access control: The marketing software should allow you to define who has access to your sales data and at what level, ensuring proper governance and security.
Zoho Marketing Plus is designed to integrate with your CRM while adhering to data security and privacy best practices, giving you full control over how data is sourced, managed, and accessed.
Onboarding & support
If you’re purchasing marketing software from a new vendor, make sure to evaluate their customer support and training. Even if you already use a marketing platform, check the following before starting your integration:
Training resources: Sessions and learning materials to help your team integrate and use the system effectively.
Knowledge base (KB): A comprehensive library for quick troubleshooting if something goes wrong.
Responsive support: Timely assistance via phone, chat, or email to guide you through every step.
Zoho Marketing Plus offers:
24/5 friendly customer support via email, calls, and chat
Easy-to-follow Knowledge Center
Flexible plans with no mandatory contracts
Zoho community to share ideas, ask any questions to us
Annual events, Zoholics at your city to connect with the team behind Zoho
The goal is simple: your teams should focus on winning customers, not wasting time fixing software issues or asking for basic help. A vendor that offers strong onboarding and ongoing support ensures your marketing and sales teams stay productive and aligned
Key features in Zoho Marketing Plus that help sales and marketing work together
Work management
Both sales and marketing teams can manage tasks in shared Kanban boards—assigning, tracking, and following up in one unified space. This ensures complete visibility into who is doing what and keeps everyone accountable.
Real-time collaboration
Sales can instantly connect with marketing via chat, calls, or group meetings. File sharing and discussions happen in real time, making collaboration seamless and reducing response delays.
Unified customer journey
A shared dashboard gives both teams visibility into the customer journey, including funnel stages, lead progress, and engagement history. This helps identify what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus next.
Single source of ROI
With budgets and revenue metrics consolidated in one place, both marketing and sales teams gain clear visibility into where money is being spent and what revenue is being generated. This transparency drives smarter decisions and stronger alignment. You can also manage role-based privileges to control access—ensuring the right people see the right information and reports.
Holistic customer view
In solutions like Zoho Marketing Plus with the right integration, sales and marketing gain a 360-degree view of each customer—from past sales interactions and support tickets to the solutions they use and the value they bring. This complete visibility helps teams plan personalized strategies and strengthen relationships.
Popular CRM that Zoho Marketing Plus currently supports
- Zoho CRM
- Salesforce CRM
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM
- HubSpot CRM
- Sugar CRM
Integrating your CRM with Zoho Marketing Plus is simple:
- No need to replace your existing sales software
- Easy to integrate—just plug and play
- Instant setup with no complex operations
- See value and ROI within weeks, not months
Try Zoho Marketing Plus free for 15 days—integrate it with your existing CRM without losing data or starting from scratch, and experience how seamlessly marketing and sales can work together.