Your marketing strategy shouldn’t be a back-and-forth struggle with sales and compliance teams. Though each team’s daily tasks vary, the desired outcome boils down to a common goal of attracting new business opportunities, expanding the client base, and improving the bottom line in the process.

Forward-thinking financial marketers are always looking for ways to take the hassle out of their firm’s marketing efforts and find opportunities for collaboration. This not only makes for a more seamless process, but also reaps more fruitful outcomes across the board. So what are some practical steps you can take to streamline your strategy?

Get sales involved from the get-go

Experienced marketers understand that the sales team is not the enemy. In fact, sales can actually help the marketing team do their job better. Given their close relationship with clients, sales can help relay customer needs to inform a tailored marketing approach that targets clients’ unique goals and preferences. And internally, looping in sales early reduces the likelihood for turf wars down the road.

Make sure your tech is aligned too

It’s not enough that your sales and marketing leaders are communicating openly with one another. If the technology platforms each team relies on aren’t in sync—or worse, still, are incompatible—this can lead to communication problems down the road. Breaking down silos in systems and between marketing and sales is key. Data can get messy, and keeping it organized and making sure that everyone involved in the organization is on the same page is crucial for control.

Understand compliance’s POV—and help them understand yours

In the best of all possible worlds, there shouldn’t be any tension between marketing and compliance. The trouble is, both sides come at this shared goal from opposite sides of the table.

How to bridge the gap? One easy way is to sit the compliance team near the marketing team for greater flow of communication. By creating transparency and open communication throughout the process, compliance won’t be caught off guard, and marketing will have a clear vision of expectations from start to finish.

This blog was inspired by our latest piece of research, The Financial Marketer Mindset: Technology’s Impact on Marketing Strategy. We interviewed marketing decision makers from financial services firms to get their thoughts on how technology, if used properly, can help marketers confront some of the biggest challenges they face today.