The Difference Between Marketing And Sales
When starting a new venture, some will advise you to focus on ramping up your sales team’s efforts to reach out to potential customers. While others will advise you to focus on building your marketing strategy to achieve this. But aren’t sales and marketing basically the same thing?
The answer is no. There is a big difference between marketing and sales. Read the article to discover exactly where this difference lies.
@ What is the difference between sales and marketing?
@ Should I focus on sales or marketing?
@ How can I use sales and marketing together?
What is the difference between sales and marketing?
The difference between sales and marketing is that sales focus on working directly with potential customers, while marketing focuses on generating interest in your products. Marketing is basically the first step to getting potential customers interested, while sales takes that interest and feeds it.
Sales vs Marketing
Let’s take a closer look at the difference between sales and marketing.
Processes
The sales and marketing processes are slightly different. Think of marketing as an introduction to the sales team.
You can generate basic information such as who you are, what your company offers, and how much their products cost through the marketing process. You are establishing your brand, showcasing what you have to the public, and explaining to them how you can solve their problems.
In the sales process, you focus on taking the information your audience has and trying to provide them with additional information by answering their questions.
Grammarly provides a great example of a sales-focused page. Their scheme highlights all the additional features you get by getting Grammarly Premium, which serve as strong selling points for the company. Plus, they include stats at the bottom that show why people love their product.
Objectives
Another difference between sales and marketing is objectives. Sales focus is mainly on earning conversions. Your sales team nurtures leads into customers. While marketing focuses on promoting your company, product, service or brand and showing its value that helps you to win sales.
strategies
Marketing and sales differ in terms of strategies. Sales strategies focus on making direct contact with your customers via phone calls, promotional events, networking… These are known as external strategies because you work outside the company to reach customers.
Marketing strategies, on the other hand, focus on getting potential customers to reach you. All your marketing efforts are directed towards making customers reach you and acquire your product or service. These are known as inbound marketing strategies because your leads are coming to you.
clients
When we talk about sales, you know the people who are interested in your products or services, from their names to their phone numbers, so you can contact them quickly and provide them with information about your new product. But this is different with marketing, where the focus shifts to reaching the people who are most interested so you can convert them into leads for your sales team.
Should I focus on sales or marketing?
The debate should not be about sales vs marketing and which one deserves your attention more. Rather, the focus should be on how you can use sales and marketing together to help your business thrive.
The lines between sales and marketing are blurring. Marketing helps start the process of generating leads, while sales teams convert those leads into customers. It’s hard to have one without the other. You need a combined strategy to maximize sales.
How do I create an effective marketing and sales strategy?
Now that you have an answer to the question “What is the difference between marketing and sales?” It’s time to focus on using sales and marketing together to maximize profits for your business.
Here are four tips for creating an effective marketing and sales strategy:
1. Make sure you know your market
For a successful sales and marketing strategy, you need to build a solid knowledge of your market. This information is important so that the marketing team knows who to target, and the sales team understands the specific information they need.
To create your target market, you need to note the characteristics that your typical customers share, such as:
- Age
- sexy
- Occupation
- Marital status
- income
- buying habits
- Hobbies
- Interests…
Having a basic profile of your customers will help you see how you can best reach them. It also enables your sales and marketing team to provide the best information to your audience.
2. Define your niche in your market
To have a coherent sales and marketing strategy, you need to define your niche in the market, what you offer and what makes you the best choice.
It’s a good idea to create this information so that your sales and marketing team delivers a consistent message about your products or services, which will also help you establish your brand identity and define what makes you stand out from all the competition.
Apple and Microsoft are great examples of this concept. You can see by comparing their ads how they position themselves in the market and what they choose to focus on to get people to buy their products.
It is easier for you to attract more potential customers when you know your niche in the market.
If you are one of the top rated insurance companies in your area, you can market this information to your potential clients. The sales team will then provide information explaining why you are a highly rated insurance company.
3. Check rates
Sami browses your website. He was watching your show after seeing ads for it and reading some of the content on your site. He sees that you’re offering a limited-time discount to first-time subscribers.
Sami then contacts your sales team for more information. The latter is soon confused after the sales team told him the original price instead of the discounted price.
So if you decide to give a discount on your rates or add a bonus, you need to let your marketing and sales team know and keep them up to date with any changes.
If your sales team gives wrong prices or numbers, it can make potential clients lose confidence in your business.
4. Keep both teams informed
Keeping your sales team updated with prices and sales is just the beginning. A strong sales and marketing strategy keeps both parties informed.
When the marketing team manages your campaigns, the sales team needs to know what kind of campaigns you’re running so they can be able to instantly update what information the potential customer has seen.
If you’re advertising a sale with your PPC ads, your sales team needs to know about it so they can re-update the information.
The sales team also has to keep the marketing team informed, as they deal with potential customers individually so they know what works and what doesn’t. This information will help your marketing team create campaigns that will better appeal to your target audience.