Marketing and sales are two business functions within an organization both geared to increase income. A lot of people use these terms interchangeably but there is a difference in how they function. When you mix them up, you end up confusing yourself which will lead to creating chaos thus no income.
Having a good product without proper marketing and sales will not grow your income and business.
Keynote
Marketing and sales are two skill sets. A good marketer does not equate to a good sales person and vice versa. A reason you will always see a sales and marketing team in well structured companies.
It is common to see most small businesses focusing on sales and not marketing. Which I think is one of the many reasons small businesses fail after two to three years of existence. Or employing either of them to perform both roles.
This article will walk you through the differences between marketing and sales in various aspects of goals, process and strategy.
Why is it important to understand the difference between marketing and sales?
As an organization, company or business, it is important to distinguish between what is marketing (what can you expect from marketing) and what is sales (what can you expect from sales). The functions are different but closely linked and act as a catalyst for generating profit . While marketing is about building brand awareness, positioning and attracting the target market, sales turn that viewership into profit by converting potential customers into actual customers.
This will help build the right team, the right system, and the right strategy for your business. This further aids the company in budget allocation and overall running of the business.
What is sales?
Sales is the exchange of goods and services in return for money. It is any activity related to the amount of goods and services sold in a given period. Sales involves convincing potential customers to buy from your company. The convincing could be using techniques like sales, discounts, coupon codes. Sales focus on bringing out clarity on the benefits and features of the product and communicating the unique selling proposition. Sales is the final stage in marketing.
Inbound vs Outbound Sales
With Inbound sales, the customer visits your shop or “DM” you through social media to buy a product. This could be random people surfing the internet and fall on your marketing material and decides to contact you.
Outbound sales, the company reaches out to its customers usually through the sales department on cold callings, emails, LinkedIn messages, door to door sales in order to close a deal. They try to initiate a conversation and see if the prospect is interested, after they have read that cold email for example. They then book a call with the company.
With inbound sales the leads come to you because of the marketing material, while with outbound sales, you reach out to generate leads from people.
Outbound sale is much more difficult than inbound sale. With inbound sales, all you do is take calls from people who are interested.
With outbound you reach out to people who may not know or be interested in your products.
Obviously most people are going to say no.
It’s like seeing a stranger on the street and asking : Will you marry me?
A small percentage will say yes.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is a process of researching and analysing customer requirements according to which a company manufactures a product to satisfy their needs. The marketing team frequently does market research to determine the likes and dislikes of consumers. Marketing may or not focus on generating direct sales leads, but they definitely intend to make sales easier and increase revenue over a longer period of time.
Inbound and Outbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a strategic approach of creating valuable content that aligns with the needs of your target audience. Creating engaging content to connect with your audience through means like search engine optimisation (SEO), social media, blog post.
Providing value before selling.
On the other hand, outbound marketing is proactively reaching out to a potential customer, to get them interested in your products.
Selling before providing value.
Examples are trade fairs, tv commercials, billboards, press releases.
Now that we know what they mean, let’s dive into the pros and cons to help you choose.
Pros and Cons of Inbound and Outbound marketing
The pro of outbound marketing is speed, if you know how to reach your audience then you can quickly start selling.
However , the con of outbound marketing is cost. You will need to spend a lot of money to reach your audience. You have to Keep spending money again and again to reach new people.
The pro of inbound marketing is cost. If you start creating valuable content today, in the long run your cost will be extremely low. The content you create today can still be valuable to someone years to come.
The con of inbound marketing is speed, it can take years to start seeing results.
So which are you going for?
Inbound and outbound marketing is extremely important. The key is to combine both to accelerate growth.
Differences between marketing and sales
Let’s look at the difference in various aspects of goals, process and strategy
Marketing vs Sales Goals
Marketing goals
- The primary aim of marketing is lead generation
- Research customers needs and interest
- Build brand awareness
- Improve product awareness
- Increase customer satisfaction
- Maintain customer relationships
- Establish the company as a thought leader in its industry
A marketer builds credibility about you, your product, company, brand and your unique selling proposition. Then creates curiosity so that the prospect inquires about the product and services.
Sales goals
- The ultimate goal of sales is revenue generation.
- Close sales
- Retain existing customers
- Increase profit margin
- Lower customer acquisition cost
- Create clarity about your product/services
Marketing vs Sales process
Marketing process
A marketer provides information about the company, brand, products and unique selling proposition.
Who you are?
What you offer?
How much it cost
Marketers establish the brand and showcase the product’s benefits and features and explain how these features can solve customers problems. Marketing feeds sales.
Sales process
With the sales process, you focus on taking the information customers already have about the product and provide them with additional information as well as answer their questions.
Provide strong selling points, personalized solutions and making pitches to convince leads to convert.
You show statistics for how many and why people love your product
Marketing vs sales strategies
Marketing strategy
Marketing is focused on reaching the target audience.
Common marketing strategies:
- Product focus marketing: Companies focus on the features and benefits of their products such as quality, size and packaging.
- Price focus marketing: It is when a company tries to attract customers solely based on price strategies like discount pricing, price matching, (offering to beat competitors prices), premium pricing (which is a symbol of high quality).
- Status marketing: Companies position their products as a status symbol and reserve the right to decide who they sell it to.
For example: A high end watch producer may choose to sell its watch only to a selected group of high net worth individuals and influential people, giving them a sense of exclusiveness.
- Online marketing: Businesses market their products to potential customers through digital strategies like search engines, emails and social media marketing.
Sales strategy
The sales team focuses on converting customers to purchase the company’s products and services.
Common sales strategies:
- Cold calling: Call potential customers to pitch products
- Door-to-door sales: Sales executives reach out to customers and sell their products.
- Discount sales: Companies offer a discount for a certain range of products for a limited period.
- Trade fares: Company executive promote/sell their products
- Cross-selling: Companies sell a different/new product to their existing customers
Marketing and sales strategy can vary from industry, product, market and target customer.
Basic differences between marketing and sales
- The target audience for marketing is the public in general
- The target audience for sales is individuals and companies
- Marketing creates a new demand or fix the product into existing demand
- Sales fulfil a demand
- Marketing turns for the long term
- Sales turns for the short term
- Marketing identifies customers’ requirements and makes products to fulfil their requirements.
- Sales influence the target audience to become buyers of the product
- Marketing attracts the customers towards the products
- Sales push the products to the customers
- Measure the performance and effectiveness of marketing by looking at the reach, engagement and enquiries it is generating.
- The measurement metric for sales is the requirements you are able to gather, proposals you are able to send and deals you are able to negotiate and close on.
Skills required for marketing and sales
Marketing
Analytical skills, Research, Creativity, Communication etc.
Sales
Communication, negotiation and influencing, selling etc.
Conclusion
Although they are different, marketing and sales give the best results when they are coordinating together. The key is for you to understand these differences and then build capabilities for your marketing activity, marketing systems, and teams, and your sales activity, systems and teams.
When marketing is done well the less sales you have to do.
Hope you enjoyed reading. Leave a comment.
