Cleantech Marketers, Want More Revenue? Talk to Sales.

🌀The Regular Funnel is Out. Feedback Loops are 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, which we’ve talked more about in our guide where you can learn about why linear funnels don’t match today’s cleantech buying.

There’s more noise, more greenwashing, and way more nuance in cleantech, where 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? We’re co creating a story, with sales, with our 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 for us in Marketing that means better listening!

Objections Are 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, but they're also raw, unfiltered insights into what your audience really cares about.

And if our marketing isn’t folding those insights back into messaging we'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.

If our campaigns aren’t resonating, it’s probably not because they’re not “creative enough.” It’s because they’re not specific enough.

Example: 213% Lead Growth from One Simple Sales Marketing Fix

One of our clients, a fast growing Sustainability SaaS platform (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 was that sales and marketing weren’t talking.

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

1. Created tailored sales scripts targeting a specific industry
2. Researched the industry’s key objections, pain points, and deal blockers
3. 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 more efficiently:

❌ 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 can end up feeling like passive aggressive status updates, or glorified data dumps. Don’t make it a data dump. Make it a jam session.

The best format we have found can be covered in 30 mins tops, with one marketer, one sales lead, and one goal:

“What did we hear this week, and what should we say next week?”

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

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

This is 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 is already in your CRM, or your Slack threads, or even 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, now's the time to create your loop. You can make it messy, and you can make it honest. But most of all, make it TOGETHER!

Now it’s your turn: Create Your Own “Feedback Loop Doc”

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.

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.

Happy building!