Simple Differences Between Sales and Marketing
Many people tend to think there are practically no differences between the fields of sales and marketing. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. When it comes to marketing, the goal is to inform as well as attract potential leads to a company, a service or a product.
On the other hand, with sales, it means working directly with those leads to reinforce the company’s idea, so they will turn from potential customers into paying individuals. As simple as all of this may sound, it’s a bit more complicated than it seems. However, both fields have one common objective and that’s to attract potential leads that then turn to paying customers, all of which generates revenue for the company.
The Differences
Starting with the terms themselves, marketing is actually the process where companies get people interested in whatever services or goods they are offering to them. Meanwhile, the term sales are actually all of the activities that lead to selling those services or those goods that the company is offering.
The people in the sales department are responsible for running the relationships with the company’s prospects, which eventually leads to selling the goods or services. The people in the marketing department are responsible for running various campaigns which attract people to the company’s goods and services.
Next, there are differences between the resources and the tools that the two types of roles use in their work. For example, the sales tools include invoicing software that the company is using, an email management tool, software for managing the inventory and orders, an application for meetings and a tool for documents.
The marketing industry uses project management and content creation tools, software for reporting the company data, an SEO tool, and conversion rate optimization.
There are also differences in the campaigns, also known as plans. For example, the marketing department decides what the product will be, along with the price and the target audience. As for the sales department, they decide on the sales process as well as the resources that will be needed to hit all the necessary set targets.
Finally, there are also plenty of differences in the strategies that the two fields use, and those depend on the target audience, the industry where the product or service belongs and the product itself.
Merging Sales with Marketing
Aside from all of the differences mentioned above, in order for sales and marketing to succeed individually, the two fields need to align and work together. They can do this by establishing shared goals and deciding how the performance will be measured between the two. When this happens, the company is set for success and will be able to generate even more leads and revenue.
