This is an age old question, what is the difference between Sales and Marketing? Or if they are indeed different in any way or not? In fact, many people live with a belief that these two are the same. But they aren’t! They are two completely different activities carried out to bring out growth in a business.
Basic Difference Between Sales and Marketing
| Sales | Marketing |
| Main focus on interaction with customers, on providing relevant information, on answering customer questions | Main Focus on the explanation of product or Services, target audience, product cost and how to target audience |
| Major goals: to hit the the sales goals and quotas | Major goals: promotion of the product/Service/Organization/Brand, attracting leads and earning sales via marketing efforts, relaying its value to customers |
| Strategies used are; networking phone calls | Social media, paid ads, Search Engine Optimization |
| Sales prospects; known contacts who meet the criteria of being your customer | Marketing prospects; continuously obtaining new prospects |
Let us dive deeper into these differences:
Sales
Sales is undertaken by laying out added information to the audience on top of already known information. Another main course of action in the sales process is answering questions of your audience. Strong selling points are provided to the audience along with personalized solutions. Sales professionals make strong pitches to convert leads or audiences to customers and clients.
Sales Goals
Major goal in sales is to increase the number of clients. Converting mere audiences and leads to customers and clients is the focused goal in sales. Sales team works a lot in fostering prospects to become customers.
Sales Strategies
Strategies used in sales are mainly outbound strategies like
Phone calls: directly involving in phone conversations with potential clients to pitch your product
Promotional events: holding events where you demonstrate and pitch your products.
Networking: attending various events and selecting the right group of people to pitch your products and work further on converting them to customers.
Sales Prospects
In sales, your prospects are known contacts. It makes sales professionals easy to contact them and relay extra information related to the product they are selling.
Marketing
Marketing is undertaken to promote brands, organisations, institutions and ultimately sell your products. The process includes various stages and mediums. In marketing you let your potential clients know who you are, what you are offering and the cost of your products and services. It is one of the major important ways to establish your brand and build a stable audience.
Marketing Goals
The major goal of marketing is promotion. Be it promotion of a product or service, company, organization, institution marketing aims on this. It is through marketing that the value of an organization is communicated to a target audience. Another main aim of marketing is to establish a brand name.
Marketing Strategies
Strategies used in marketing are mostly inbound strategies like
Social Media: creating campaigns to establish your business. Direct engagement with the prospects, creating brand identity and awareness among the audience.
Paid ads: focus on your target audience by bidding on keywords and key phrases, direct traffic to your website and business.
Search Engine Optimization: making your website visible in search results by using various keywords.
Marketing Prospects
Unlike sales, where prospects are known contacts, marketing focuses on gaining new prospects. Marketing professionals don’t know their prospects specifically instead they have a target audience (which are selected on criterias based off of the products/services being sold). They create campaigns to turn prospects into clients.
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