Cleantech Marketers, Want More Revenue? Talk to Sales.

🌀Your Regular Funnel is Out. Feedback Loop is In.

For years, marketing in cleantech has tried to squeeze buyers into neat, clean funnels.

Awareness → Interest → Decision → Deal.

But that model’s looking a little 2000 right now. 2025 is a different beast. Up to 70% of climate tech startups struggle to scale past early growth. One big reason is the marketing/sales gap. . We’ve talked more about this in this resourceful guide. Learn how we break down why linear funnels don’t match how today’s cleantech buyers behave.

There’s more noise, more greenwashing, and way more nuance in buyer behavior. Cleantech customers don’t move in straight lines. They loop, they bounce, they ghost, they come back. They read a white paper and then DM your founder on LinkedIn six months later.

The truth? You’re no longer guiding leads down a funnel. You’re co creating a story, with sales, with your customers, and yes, with every objection that ever hit a cold call.

Especially in 2025, with global pressure on carbon goals and investor scrutiny sharper than ever, it's not just nice for marketing and sales to work together anymore. It's necessary.

Welcome to the age of iterative storytelling, where Sales close deals AND also open feedback loops. And Marketing? We better be listening.

🎤 Objections Are Your Buyers Yelling Exactly What they Need, for Free!

Let’s talk about objections, those “not the right time,” “too expensive,” “how are you different from X?” moments that sales reps hear daily.

Though they sound like roadblocks—and yes, they are—they're also raw, unfiltered insights into what your audience really cares about. And if your marketing isn’t folding those insights back into your messaging? You're missing gold. That’s why we always pair this with a strong persona foundation, this guide to crafting B2B cleantech buyer personas is a great place to start if you haven’t already.

Here’s a harsh truth: if your campaigns aren’t resonating, it’s probably not because they’re not “creative enough.” 

It’s because they’re not specific enough.

Pro tip: Set up a “Top Objections of the Month” Slack channel between Sales and Marketing. Start tagging common ones and track how you’re addressing them in messaging.

⚡ Real Results: 213% Lead Growth from One Simple Sales Marketing Fix

One of our clients, a fast growing B2B cleantech startup, Tellus Markets, was pouring time and money into lead generation but the results weren’t sticking. Sales was calling leads with no clear direction, and conversions were flatlining.

The real issue? Sales and marketing weren’t talking.

Once we stepped in, we took a structured, integrated approach:

✅Created tailored sales scripts targeting a specific industry

✅Researched the industry’s key objections, pain points, and deal blockers

✅Shared these insights with the sales team, so they could lead smarter conversations

This shift in alignment did more than just help marketing. It made the whole funnel work better:

❌ Sales stopped wasting time on the wrong leads

✅ Marketing started attracting buyers who were ready to talk

🔁 Sales and marketing finally spoke the same language

The results?

📈 213% increase in qualified leads

🚀 Average launch time sped up by 3.5x (from 3 months to just 15 days)

🎯 119 new MQLs and 9 solid sales opportunities within weeks

🔥 And best of all, conversion rates jumped by over 20%

All because we closed the loop between sales and marketing.! Now that wasn’t hard, was it?

🔁 Build Your Weekly Sync To Ace Your Game

Most Sales x Marketing meetings feel like passive aggressive status updates or glorified data dumps. Don’t make it a data dump. Make it a jam session. 30 mins tops. 

One marketer, one sales lead, one goal:

“What did we hear this week, and what should we say next week?” Treat your syncs like agile product sprints. Same energy. Same iteration mindset.

Here’s a weekly agenda that you can follow in your next meeting 👉

Want help building a personalized sprint for your cleantech innovation goals? We would be happy to help you ACE that next meeting: reach out for a no-strings-attached session.

Remember, the metrics you have obtained here either highs or lows, are numbers that can help you pave your path ahead. It's about the narrative those metrics are telling, and who’s helping you rewrite it in real time.

📲 Record (and Listen to) Sales Calls

Nope, not to play blame games. But to absorb tone, tension, and language buyers actually use. Tools like Gong, Chorus, or even Zoom recordings are goldmines.

In Gong, we heard the phrase ‘plug and play’ 9 times in 2 weeks. That became our next email subject line.

Look out for:

• Questions that stall the sale

• Words buyers repeat (“reliable,” “plug and play,” “payback”)

• Industry jargon they don’t understand

Turn those into:

• Email subject lines

• FAQ sections

• LinkedIn posts with punch

🎯 Run Monthly ‘Objection to Campaign’ Sprints

Challenge your team: take one sales objection and spin it into:

• A case study

• A landing page A/B test

• A nurture email

• A social post

• It’s scrappy. It’s specific. And it actually addresses what buyers care about

💡 Pro Tips from the Trenches

✔️ Ask your sales team: “What do you wish we explained better?”
✔️ Share your campaign metrics, but ask for theirs too "Which leads are ghosting and why?"
✔️ Don’t just “align.” Co-create. Invite sales to naming brainstorms, product launches, even webinar panels.

Wrapping Up: Long Live the Loop!

In 2025, cleantech companies don’t win because they yell louder. They win because they LISTEN better.

And the loudest feedback?

It’s already in your CRM. In your Slack threads. In the sighs of your sales team when another deck doesn’t land. If you’re still building campaigns without looping in sales, you’re marketing with your eyes closed. Open them. 

Create your loop. Make it messy. Make it honest. But most of all, make it TOGETHER!

Now it’s your turn - Create Your “Feedback Loop Doc” ….. And actually USE IT!

Let’s help you do this. This can be a simple documentation where sales drops recurring objections or FAQs & marketers reply with responses or content ideas. 

Simple. Live. Shared.

Your Feedback Loop Doc should have:

• Top 5 Objections This Month/FAQs

• Marketing Response (where is it being addressed: ad copy, landing page, email?)

• Sales Notes (Did it land? Did it flop?)

• Customer Quote of the Week

• Next Iteration Idea

Drop it into Notion, Slack, heck, even a Google Doc. Doesn’t matter. What matters is it’s living! Share it with both teams. You’ll be shocked at what it sparks.

Want a battle-tested template we use with cleantech clients? Drop us a message and we’ll send it over. Let us help you, we've been there!