Introduction :
The terms “sales” and “marketing” are often confused and sometimes, even used interchangeably. Though during casual conversations, “sales” is substituted in place of “marketing” and vice versa, without making the sentence sound too different; in reality, “sales” and “marketing” are very different activities. So, what are the differences?
Inconnectors is back with yet another blog to elucidate and help you understand the key differences between sales and marketing!
Sales:
Sales only includes that step when people buy your product or service from you and pay you in return for it. It begins with your customer buying from you and ends with you getting paid for providing the product or service.
Marketing:
Marketing on the other hand, includes all the activities that facilitate flow of good towards your customers. These activities include identifying and understanding your customer’s needs, reaching out to them , to make them aware of your products and their benefits and also ensuring that your customers are satisfied with your offerings.
Sales vs marketing:
1. LEADS AND CONSUMERS: Sales convert your leads into customers. Marketing generates leads and helps you to lure people towards your product or service. For some witty sales tips on converting a difficult lead to a customer and to convert your customers to leads, you might like to check out these!
2. ROLE OF SALES VS ROLE OF MARKETING: Sales commence once the product is completely manufactured and comes into the market to be utilized by people. Whereas marketing starts with identifying customers’ needs or gaps in the market and the conception of an idea. Precisely speaking, sales are the later steps of marketing whereas, marketing is the entire process. Thus, it can safely be concluded that sales is the subset of marketing.
3. SCOPE: Sales is a short-term activity, done keeping in mind short term goals like, selling a particular number of products in a financial year. Marketing, on the other hand, is done keeping in mind long-term goals like, building customer relationships, creating a specific brand image etc.
Therefore, while sales ends with customers paying for goods or services, marketing continues in the form of asking for feedback, giving special discounts to loyal customers, providing newsletters and so on.
Conclusion:
In a nutshell, sales is just a small but very crucial part of marketing. Sales is the step in which money actually comes into the company. The success of your brand is defined by the extent to which your organization concentrates on sales and marketing. It is significant to understand the current needs and market trends and patterns of your brand before deciding the sales and marketing strategy. Better late than never! If you hadn’t been very clear between sales and marketing till now, we hope this article has clarified all misconceptions and doubts in your mind. It’s time to strengthen your organization’s sales and marketing techniques to generate more leads, convert more and more of those leads, into customers and achieve your goals of growth.
Keeping these key differences in mind make sure your sales and marketing teams work hand in hand, thus creating a win-win situation for your company!