Sales vs Marketing: What’s The Difference & How They Work Together
By Sam Nguyen
Drive 20-40% of your revenue with Avada
The practice of Marketing was born in the 1900s but it is often misunderstood that Marketing is about selling. Unfortunately, this misconception is still quite common in business as well as many people today.
In fact, marketing and sales are almost contrastive. Sales are only focused on selling as many products as possible. Marketing is about creating customers for the company.
In this this article, we will give you an in-depth comparison of these two common terms. Additionally, we also explain the definition of Sales and Marketing as well as the way they work together within a business.
Let’s get started!
Sales vs Marketing definition
What is Sales?
“Sales” is a term that is used widely in business. In short, this belongs to the sales department of a company or an organization that directly affects customers and sellers intending to sell as many products as possible to reap high profits.
Traditionally, businesses’ growth relies a lot on sales. When a company wants to increase its revenue, it needs to hire more sales representatives (sales reps). The selling process aims to turn the customer’s interest in the product into an actual purchase action. Salespeople’s mission is to put products in the hands of customers by using their specialized skills and overcoming sales objections.
In case getting into financial difficulties, the company would reduce marketing costs or give up on sales reps depends on the situation
What is Marketing?
With the development of mass media, it would be a mistake not to mention the role of marketing in a business. Marketing includes all kinds of activities that help spark customers’ interest in the brand or products of the business.
To build an effective marketing strategy, marketers must research and grasp market trends, thereby giving the right direction for the company. Besides, marketers also need to understand customers’ behavior to build trust and credibility.
For example, if a company performs through advertising, announcement, public relations, etc, it is called marketing methods.
What are the major differences between Sales and Marketing?
Sales vs Marketing: Profit target
The biggest difference between sales and marketing is the profit target. When talking about sales, its goal is to increase profits for the business by increasing the number of products sold.
However, marketing has a series of goals on a macro level. It increases profits by satisfying the needs of customers. Marketing is therefore constantly creating value by offering better solutions that reduce the time and effort required to find customers. As a result, it brings to society a higher standard of living.
Sales vs Marketing: Function
The two departments are on the same line, and they coordinate with each other to generate interest and revenue from customers. But before anyone becomes a client of a company, marketers have to attract them, turn them from potential customers into actual customers for the sales department, makes it easier for salespeople to vend products and services.
Marketers do not plan until the new product is released. Before performing, they have to determine the type of product, target customer, and strategy, then keep track of the production process - the stage of turning ideas into actual products.
After completing products with all efforts and creativity, marketers bring products to consumers. PR, promotion, and marketing campaigns are being promoted continuously, hoping customers to know about their products and brands. Therefore, this is the most important stage.
In the last stage, the sales department joins in. The department now becomes significant to achieve a company’s revenue goals. Based on the marketing strategies, sales staff will use their skills and tricks to sell more products and bring revenue to the company.
In this final step, if the sales department doesn’t show up, marketers cannot bring ideas into reality. The company’s products do not reach consumers. Businesses cannot convert goods into money to gain profits.
Sales vs Marketing: Strategy
Marketing’s strategy
Marketing activities require the use of synthesis and a combination of measures. It is necessary to compare and choose strategies to optimize benefits depending on the campaign’s purpose or target customer. Some common strategies in marketing used nowadays are:
- Social Media
- Public Relations
- Print, TV, or Digital Advertising
- Search Engine Optimization
Sales’ strategy
In the same way as marketing, companies will adopt tactics depending on the market or target customer. Some popular sales strategies include:
- Promotional Events & Trade fairs
- Face-to-face Meetings
- SPIN selling
- NEAT selling
How sales and marketing can work together?
The relationship between marketing and sales
For businesses, one of the challenges related to the organization is connecting marketing and sales. It might sound simple, but in reality, it’s not. Usually, the concept of two departments about each other is not in goodwill. Because the function and the goals of these two departments are different, so they often have many conflicts.
When a product or service is brought to the salespeople, instead of being implemented strategically, they are very ambitious and do whatever it takes to sell more products. They could overuse prices as a tool to increase sales. As a result, this may cause reducing product value and erode the strategies that the marketing team has built. So if a problem occurs, which department will be responsible? How can these two aspects intertwine effectively?
Improve the Quality of Customer Database
According to Hubspot’s Fifth Annual Review of Inbound Marketing Trends and Tactics, more than 70% of marketers fail to notice the importance of the agreement with salespeople. It means that when the company does not show enough performance, the marketing department often blames salespeople for their poor skills. Similarly, salespeople often criticize marketing departments, showing that they are irresponsible in market research, bringing non-targeted customers.
To get rid of this situation, businesses need to have specific standards on the quality of customer data transferred to sales. In other words, before giving the data to the sales side, the marketing department needs to have some screening to find out what group of potential customers. As a result, businesses both avoid blaming and wasting the time and resources of the sales team on non-potential customers.
Reciprocal relationship
Many people think that the working process between the two departments is only about salespeople receiving information from marketers. However, the opposite direction from sales to marketing is also very significant.
Specifically, the sales department is in direct contact with customers, so they can easily understand psychology and customer behavior. In addition, during the contact process, salespeople can collect more information from customers about their needs, problems in product quality assessment, or simply the reasons why they don’t buy a company’s product.
These data are essential suggestions for the marketing department to evaluate and adjust the strategy to be reasonable. The exchange of information between the two departments should be continuous and up-to-date.
The marketing department, not only collect customer leads but also need to provide full customer information, new market signs, emerging problems, etc. Together, they will discuss problems and come up with suitable solutions. Thanks to that, the difference between sales and marketing does not conflict each other but also help each other at work.
Conclusion
Thus, from the analysis of the difference between sales and marketing, individuals and businesses can consider recruitment options and build plans to connect these two departments.
Hopefully, this post has given you all the necessary knowledge about Marketing and Sales and how they work together. If you find this interesting, share it with your friends and visit our site for more. In case you have any questions related to the topic, don’t hesitate to let us know. Thanks for reading!
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