Marketing and Sales - What is the difference?

I’ve always been somewhat surprised at the confusion that seems to exist between the marketing and the sales process. Hopefully the following blog will eliminate some of the discrepancies.

I am not a marketing person, but I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of marketing professionals over the years while initiating sales concepts that compliment a well-conceived marketing effort.

Both marketing and sales are critical to ensure the growth of a business, but they are not the same. Let’s discuss the differences.

In simple terms, marketing is a game plan, which creates visibility and awareness of an aspiring enterprise, its products, and services. It also creates a “call to action” for your target market if they perceive that your product alleviates a need or problem. Marketing can consist of everything from collateral material, a promotional website, email correspondence, and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Marketing is all about creating a presence and creating a favorable perception about the product or service. If this perception is favorable, it creates a response that helps to initiate the sales process.

Although the term “sales” sometimes evokes negative feelings in a person’s mind, it is the major key to generating business. Sales is the engine that moves a company. It creates a cash-flow and operating capitol. Without sales, there is no way to develop new growth and expansion in a company.

The sales concept is primarily direct contact with perspective clients. It is a follow up to the marketing effort. Sales concepts can take several forms: response to an email inquiry, responding to contact from a website, a telephone conversation, or a face-to-face meeting.

Simply put, sales is all about responding to a perspective client’s need or problem with direct contact, which leads to a sales transaction. It is about creating a win-win situation for everyone involved. The transaction will not take place until the perceived value of a product or service exceeds the cost. Without this, there is no cash-flow or momentum in the company. Because at the end of the  day, there’s not much for anyone to do, until a transaction takes place.

As you can begin to see, sales and marketing are very complimentary but certainly differ in relationship to their intended purpose. The fine line between the two is often blurred to most people, who group sales and marketing together without understanding their differences.