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What’s the difference between Sales and Marketing?
Posted by Michael Cage on Monday, June 14, 2004I've been asked twice this week what the difference between sales and marketing is. Might as well answer it here...
People get hung up on this an awful lot. It really isn't rocket science. It doesn't need fancy words or esoteric concepts.
Marketing is everything you do to get and leverage a client relationship.
Sales is a one-on-one, non-automated (this caveat is necessary with "one-to-one marketing" being a popular buzz-concept) aspect of marketing.
Anti-climactic? Maybe...
When a business considers sales and marketing to be two entirely different aspects/roles/divisions, very bad things happen. Sales teams that are not integrated and a function of the marketing strategy are doomed to mind-numbing cold calls and other wastes of time and effort. Most big, dumb companies fit squarely into this category.
A tightly integrated marketing to sales process, on the other hand, is an enormous advantage. It is much more common at small businesses and medium sized businesses that have maintained their entrepreneurial nature, usually because the founder who originally had to do BOTH roles and, on some level, understands their proper relationship is still around.
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I largely agree.
There is one aspect of Marketing, however, that I don’t see discussed as much as I believe it should be.
Marketing typically has the responsibility for determining the offers that the company will make. By offer, I mean the physical product or service, and all of the other stuff that goes along with it, such as the terms of the sale, the warranty, customer service, etc.
There are good ways and bad ways to execute this process. A bad way, in my experience, is to try to compete feature-for-feature with a competitor’s product. Often, there’s a feature comparison sheet of some kind, and the implied goal of being able to put a check mark in the column corresponding to the company’s product. To me, this feels like playing for a tie. I’d rather play for a win.
A better way, in my experience, is to really understand the customer’s business, so that you can determine what you need to provide, no more and no less, that will significantly improve the customer’s operating results. How do you really understand the customer’s business? You have to build the cause-effect relationships for yourself. If you choose to skip this step you’ll never understand their business well enough to identify a deep problem that your product or service can affect.
And yes, once you have done all of this, then Marketing has to plan and execute the campaigns, but to my mind, doing this initial work properly is absolutely critical to having a thriving company.
John Sambrook on Tuesday, June 15, 2004It’s funny because I’m continually asked or debated as to whether sales is a function of marketing or vice-versa. I wholly believe that sales is a marketing function. And yet, so many companies I’ve seen actually subjugate their marketing people and functions to a “Senior Vice-President of Sales” or “Director of Sales”...who generally knows and cares little about the complete practice of marketing.
That’s a very frustrating and repressive environment for a marketer.
Darrin Dickey on Thursday, June 17, 2004“Marketing creates the platform...Sales asks for the order”
Ernest Falkner on Friday, July 02, 2004Sales is moving what you have. Marketing, having what you can move.
Peter jack on Friday, September 03, 2004Hi im 18yrs old,and recently started up my own business, this question seems to arise a great deal within my organisastion, so answer the question simpley:
Minda on Saturday, December 11, 2004Sales- Should should asses and choose sales strategy(eg solution sellingetc etc through aid of SWOT)
Marketing-target the potential customers who come under the chosen sales strategy)
Marketing’s view is 30,000 feet, Sales’s is 3 feet.
Jay Lipe on Tuesday, January 04, 2005MaRKETING IS AN OVERALL DESECION OF ORGANISATION BUT SALES IS ONLY SELF HARDWORK.
Roseline Thomas on Saturday, January 15, 2005Marketing is a circular process where sales is a part of it .Marketing is Knowing the need of the client and can be said as customer based process.where as sales is a company based process where the end result is geting money from client for the product.
Ratish Singh on Friday, June 17, 2005Marketing consists of all the activities taht are necessary to resch to the end consumer i.e product,price,place,promotion, Etc where as sales consists on one to one relationship to close the deal with the customer.
af009 on Wednesday, July 06, 2005The Marketing department designs, develops, and support the sales to move from one stage to another within the sales cycle:Cold - warm - Hot.
Rabih Gusayni on Wednesday, August 03, 2005It requires the efforts of both departments to close a deal.
Marketing is a platform on which sales are driven,combining to reap profits for the organisation.
nohammed zakir nadeem on Friday, September 16, 2005Marketing is a platform on which sales are driven,combing to reap profits for the organisation.
nohammed zakir nadeem on Friday, September 16, 2005realy its good service frm u for us .it helps us to learn abt the subject in deep apart frm book thank u
joseph on Wednesday, September 21, 2005Marketing is the effort of mainly creating and finding the needs and wants of the consumers and then to satisfy those needs...But,sales is only a part of marketing which aims towards making the products being in the customers hands.
Jojin John on Sunday, September 25, 2005Marketing is the search for the customer to match your product or services.
Shoeb Khan on Wednesday, October 05, 2005Sales takes part where the product or services matched with the customer needs.
Marketing is standing atop a hill and seeing where all the potentials are and what is their current needs.
Sales is going where the action is and that’s miggle with the potentials at the hill side and closing the deal.
tan on Wednesday, December 21, 2005-----
i think,
priyvrat vashishtha on Friday, September 15, 2006u all have given the right difinations of marketin and sales.
u all r able to have thankx.
hi im 17 yrs old… i would like to ask someting about a business..
my question is..
what is the better, to borrow a capital to your business or
use your own money or budget??
what??.... thanks for your kindness..
moks on Thursday, September 21, 2006(”,)
Please give me more details of effective marketing and also some thing on targets, Like how to fix targetrs and effectively achieving tartgets
Rajesh on Monday, November 20, 2006my mail id is
regards
rajesh
Dear Sir,
Could you kindly help me with this.
Is Software a product or a service?
Pradeep.
Pradeep on Thursday, June 21, 2007Marketing is Like full body and Sales in One Hand
Narayan on Tuesday, August 07, 2007The gross difference between sales and marketing arise as because people have a misconception that, “the art of selling” is called marketing.Selling is just a pinch to the marketing iceberg.
According to Peter.F.Ducker .......
Marketing makes the sale superfluous. The main aim of marketing is to understand the need and want of the customer so well that, the product or service fits him/her and sells itself.
But, if we talk about sale it is a monotonous
activity done in between two or more that two parties with their due consent for the exchange of some value. In the lay-man language it is known as “giving something and getting something”
For instance, McDonald understand the need and wans of the Indian customer. So, it decided to provide its burger without beef and pork.And gave an Indianize touch to its burger by naming it BIG ALU TIKI etall and also serving it with tamarind n chilly sauce.But, when a customer step in to any franchisee retail outlet of the McDonald, the franchisee only sells the burger as per the McDonald Inc. norms for India for the sake of money.Hence, in this context the McDonald Inc. understand the palate of Indian customers (which is known as “Marketing") to ease down the selling process in India.
Regards from,
Shubhendu Shekhar Mohapatra on Wednesday, August 08, 2007Shubhendu Shekhar Mohapatra
MBA Student
the differense betwen need and want in marketing
tigistu on Wednesday, November 28, 2007marking is all about know the needs and wants of ur customers and fulfilling them..
atul on Thursday, February 07, 2008where as sale is a one to one interaction between the buyer n seller for the exchange of some value..
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:
Discovering what product, service or idea customers want.
Producing a product with the appropriate features and quality.
Pricing the product correctly.
Promoting the product; spreading the word about why customers should buy it.
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.
mscmba4u@gmail.com on Tuesday, April 22, 2008at the end, marketing is creating a need, selling is fulfilling that need.
hrant baboyan on Saturday, August 16, 2008HB