Do you know the difference between marketing and sales? Let's think about this question for a moment. Without marketing you would not have prospects or leads to follow up with, but yet without a good sales technique and strategy your closing rate may depress you. Marketing and sales should work simultaneously, but in most companies they are departments that don't even speak to each other.

 

If we broke it down to the basics, marketing is everything that you do to reach and persuade prospects and the sales process is everything that you do to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract. Both are necessities to the success of a business. You cannot do without either process. If you work to strategically combine both efforts you will experience a successful amount of business growth. However, by the same token if the efforts are unbalanced or departments don't communicate it can detour business growth.

 

Your marketing should consist of strategies that you can measure your reach and work to persuade your prospects that you are the company for them. It's the message that prepares the prospect for the sale. It could consist of advertising, public relations, social media, relationship marketing, brand marketing, viral marketing, and direct mail.

 

The sales process consists of interpersonal interaction. It is often done by a one-on-one meeting, cold calls, and networking. It's anything that engages you with the prospect or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance. Most the time the prospect or potential customer has been driven to you via marketing efforts.

 

I like to think of it like this, your marketing efforts begin the process of the eight contacts or touch points that studies show it takes to move a prospect or potential client to the close of the sale. If marketing is done effectively you can begin to move that prospect from the status of a cold lead to a warm lead. When the prospect hits the"warm" level it's much easier for the sales professional or sales department to close the sale.

 

Do you see the cycle?

Studies have shown that it takes multiple contacts using both sales and marketing to move the prospect from one level to the next. That is why it is important that you develop a process that combines both sales and marketing. This will enable you to reach prospects at all three levels; cold, warm, and hot. It's all about balance. Make sure that you've integrated the two, marketing and sales. They are not separate. If they are different departments, those departments must talk and communicate in order to be effective.

 

Are you unsure of how to integrate your marketing and sales?

Try this. Take a few moments and divide your prospect lists and database into categories of cold, warm, and hot leads. Then sit down and identify a strategy on how to proceed with each individual group.

 

For example you could try the following methods of contact:

• Cold Lead Strategy- Send out a direct mailing or offer them a special promotion
• Warm Lead Strategy- Try a follow-up call, send out a sales letter, or schedule a special seminar or training session to get all of your warm leads together.

Once you've moved your prospect to the "warm" level it's time to proceed in closing the sale, call it passing the baton if you'd like. This will be easier to do if you somehow engage the prospect. You can do this by conducting a one-on-one call, make a presentation, or present a proposal, estimate, or contract.

 

What if you are uncomfortable with the sales or marketing process?

An alternative that often proves successful is to partner with someone that possess the talents that you feel you lack in. If you are stronger in marketing, find someone who understands and gets the sales process. If you are better at sales find someone that can help you strengthen the message, create marketing materials that selland give you tactics and ideas. If you don't work in a company that has both departments and you are working solo you can do this by creating a partnership, subcontracting, or hiring in that talent.

 

 

Marketing and sales are two different, but related fields. Here, we uncover the differences between these two popular industries.

 

There seems to be a never ending argument among marketing and sales professionals as to what really is the difference between marketing and sales functions. More often than not, both business activity terms are used to describe any business activity that is involved in increasing revenues. For small businesses, with limited resources, there often is no practical difference in marketing and sales functions, all revenue generating activities are typically implemented by the same personnel.

 

As a company grows in revenues and number of personnel, it typically follows a logical business function progression of "specialization", a process where the lines between more generic, departmental descriptions and functions became much more definitive and associated functional responsibilities become much more focused. Marketing and sales functions are no exception.

 

Marketing and sales functions are diverse yet very interdependent.

 

Typically "sales" cannot exceed revenue objectives without an effective marketing planning and support, and "marketing" directives ultimately becomes useless without sales to implement the plan.

 

Like many complex business issues, it is sometimes easier to define something by what it's NOT as it is to define it by what it is. Let's take a closer look at marketing to better define what sales is not.

 

Simply defining "marketing" as the "Four P's", product, price, place and promotion, based on your Marketing 101 class in college is not practical in today's global markets. In a general sense, marketing is more theoretic than sales, focused on purchase causality and is more prescriptive in purpose than descriptive. Marketing involves micro and macro market analysis focused on strategic intentions where sales is driven more by tactical challenges and customer relations. Let's take a closer look at how marketing is truly different from sales.

 

Marketing responsibilities are distinct from sales in that marketing:

 * Establishes and justifies the company's best competitive position within a market

 * Initially creates, helps sustain, and rigorously interprets customer relationships

 * Locates and profiles potential markets and key participants within

 * Generates quality sales leads

 * Develops effective selling tools

 * Formally analyzes and tracks competitor's business strategies and tactics

 * Defines, prioritizes and justifies new product or service improvements and developments

 * Promotes an explicit company product or service image

 * Facilitates information transfer from customers to the rest of the company

 * Simplifies the customer's product or service procurement process

 

A full time Marketing Manager would be responsible for the following tasks:

• New Product Roll-outs: Strategy development, program incentives, timing and media coverage
• Agency Evaluation: Selection and evaluation of outside marketing contractors
• Customer Database Management: Software selection, training, maintenance of customer contact Information
• Market Research: Market definition, prioritization, project management, data gathering
• Pricing Analysis: Pricing as a marketing tool, initiate and analyze competitor's pricing practices
• Product Audits: Establishment of a formal means to evaluate competitive offerings
• Public Relations: Establishment, guidance and coordination of all areas of public
• Relations Trade Shows: Definition, participation, prioritization and audit for effectiveness of all trade shows
• Product Promotions: Strategy formulation, program composition, premium definition, all media coverage
• Marketing Communications: All printed / electronic communication: brochures, catalogs, price lists, case histories
• Media Selection: Assist in selection and prioritization of all media options: print, broadcast, multimedia
• Internal Communications: Establish and maintain all inter-company corporate communication means
• International Marketing: Establish company presence in targeted international markets, audit for effectiveness
• Strategic Planning: Offer strategic information and alternative insights to corporate management strategies
• Board Meeting Participation: Communicate and reinforce the company marketing priorities, strategies and tactics
• Corporate Vision Statement: Proliferate and reinforce the corporate vision throughout the Organization Corporate Identity and Image: Create, maintain, improve and "manage" all corporate images and symbols

 

To a "pure" marketer, the marketing role in a company is not just a business function, but a business philosophy. An effective marketer truly believes "dominating" their target market is "owning" their market. The more a marketer can do to maintain market leadership the more effective they are perceived within the organization and within the industry.

 

As customer retention has become more of a business priority in our intensifying competitive markets, the marketing function has evolved from influencing potential customers to involving them the company's business planning and advancement. Effective marketing also has blurred the distinction between product and service and continues to apply more influence on the company's sales representation priorities.

 

In conclusion, marketing and sales functions are deeply rooted in each other's purpose and revenue growth intentions. There are few functional areas in business that relate more to each other. So the next time you hear someone say the word "sales", when the appropriate description would have been "marketing", or vise versa, think of this article and choose from any one of these documented business functions to make your point of distinction!

  

Many people mistakenly think that selling and marketing are the same - they aren't. You might already know that the marketing process is broad and includes all of the following:

1.       Discovering what product, service or idea customers want.

2.       Producing a product with the appropriate features and quality.

3.       Pricing the product correctly.

4.       Promoting the product; spreading the word about why customers should buy it.

5.       Selling and delivering the product into the hands of the customer.

Selling is one activity of the entire marketing process.

Selling is the act of persuading or influencing a customer to buy (actually exchange something of value for) a product or service.

Marketing activities support sales efforts. Actually, they are usually the most significant force in stimulating sales. Oftentimes, marketing activities (like the production of marketing materials and catchy packaging) must occur before a sale can be made; they sometimes follow the sale as well, to pave the way for future sales and referrals.

 

Contrasting the Sales Concept with the Marketing Concept
The concepts surrounding both selling and marketing also differ. There is a need for both selling and marketing approaches in different situations. One approach is not always right and the other always wrong - it depends upon the particular situation.

In a marketing approach, more listening to and eventual accommodation of the target market occurs. Two-way communication (sometimes between a salesperson and a customer) is emphasized in marketing so learning can take place and product offerings can be improved.

A salesperson using the sales concept, on the other hand, sometimes has the ability to individualize components of a sale, but the emphasis is ordinarily upon helping the customer determine if they want the product, or a variation on it, that is already being offered by the company. In the sales approach, not much time is spent learning what the customer's ideal product would be because the salesperson has little say in seeing that their company's product is modified. Furthermore, they aren't rewarded for spending time listening to the customer's desires unless they have a product to match their desires that will result in a sale. (Note, however, that sales people aren't restricted to the use of the sales concept; oftentimes they use the marketing concept instead.)

At the heart of the sales concept is the desire to sell a product that the business has made as quickly as possible to fulfill sales volume objectives. When viewed through the marketing concept lens, however, businesses must first and foremost fulfill consumers' wants and needs. The belief is that when those wants and needs are fulfilled, a profit will be made.

Do you see the difference? The selling concept, instead of focusing on meeting consumer demand, tries to make consumer demand match the products it has produced. Whereas marketing encompasses many research and promotional activities to discover what products are wanted and to make potential customers aware of them.

www.smallbusinessnotes.com