Difference Between Sales and Marketing (That You Need To Know)

When someone asks you to tell the difference between sales and marketing, do you feel confused? If so, then this blog is a must-read for you.

When differentiating between sales and marketing, most people put them in the same category. The reason for doing that is they lack the proper knowledge. Both the words are codependent on each other but not the same thing. Marketing is basically about creating and building knowledge about your product in the market.

Whereas sales is the result you get after applying the marketing strategies. So as you can see, both are related to each other but yet they are not the same. The ultimate aim of both sales and marketing teams in a company is to double up the profits and get them more customers.

To differentiate between them better. In this blog, we will learn all about sales and marketing in detail.

Definitions: Sales v/s Marketing

Sales and marketing are the two essential pillars of any business, and both have an ultimate goal to enhance the company or business revenue. However, the approach of both is different. Let’s understand the same in detail.

Sales are the term that is used to define the transaction. It simply means selling a product in return for money. Every business organization has its in-house sales team whose focus is to meet the sales target.

The sales team only deals in transactions, and the success of their project is defined by the monthly turnover or how much profit they are making. In a nutshell, the focus is to meet the desired target in a decided time frame. So basically, sales are something that circles the product.

If a sales team has set a target of selling their product at x price in y days, then they will use ‘n’ no.of techniques to achieve that by any means.

On the other hand, marketing is a customer-based approach where business tries to build awareness about the product. The main focus is on satisfying the customer. The marketing team develops new strategies and plans to bring a new customer.

So we can say that marketing efforts circle around customers. The aim is to curate the product according to the customer’s needs and then satisfy them. The marketing team starts working on the product even before the development phase, first, they research what kind of product their audience will like and then take time to analyze customer feedback.

By that, we can say that the techniques and strategies used by the marketing team are long-term. Also, they can use various channels to satisfy their audience, such as social media, television, etc.

The aim is to pull new prospects and then convert them into customers.

Similarities: Sales v/s Marketing

There are many similarities between marketing and sales, and in this section, we will cast light on the same.

If we focus on the definition, then sales are all about transactions, and marketing is about building awareness but if you look closely, you will get the ultimate goal of both is the same, which is to increase the revenue of a business. However both sales and marketing teams use different approaches and efforts to gain their ultimate result.

The other similarity in both is their strategies involving customers. The sales team directly deals with customers and pitches what they have to offer. So that the customer will end up buying the product or the service. Similarly the marketing team works on customers too, where they create awareness about the product and make sure to attract target customers.

Differences: Sales v/s Marketing

Now comes the part where I am going to the flashlight on the difference between sales and marketing.

Both the sales and marketing teams indeed have an ultimate goal to increase the revenue of the company or business. But the approaches used by both teams to achieve the same are different.

The first thing on which both the terms differ is their teamwork or process.

For example, a marketing team is way ahead of a sales team when it comes to connecting with customers. The marketing team does all the groundwork for the sales team by creating awareness about the product, which simply involves the USP’s of the product and how much it costs, etc. Marketing teams analyze their user base, then learn about their problems, craft a solution that can meet the requirement, addressing the user how the product can be the right choice for them.

On the other hand, the sales team works on the marketing team's foundation. Their work is to convert visitors into customers by giving them sales pitches and answering their burning questions. The sales team mainly focuses on making convincing points about the product. Sales pitches are mainly compelling as it happens one to one, and most sales representatives personalize the product according to their user needs in the pitch itself.

The second point where both marketing and sales differ is their goals.

Both have separate goals to attain the same ultimate goal, which is to increase revenue. Sales goals revolve around bringing conversions and meeting the set targets, while marketing is all about building awareness and trust about the product in the market.

Another point that differentiates the both is their strategies.

The strategies preferred by the sales team are sending personalized emails, making phone calls, doing promotional activities, etc. However, all such activities are outbound because the sales team reaches out to their prospects.

You might have witnessed various promotional emails or calls about any services in your day-to-day life that all are sales pitches. On the other hand, marketing strategies are a bit different; the team works in a way that customers reach out to a product or service. The advertisements we watch on television or the promotional posts we see on social media are all examples of marketing strategies.

Further, another difference between sales and marketing is prospects.

In marketing, you don’t know your audience literally, whereas in sales, you know about your audience, and that way, you reach out to them. In simple words, the marketing team is only aware of their target demographic but doesn’t have a specific list of people. The marketing team develops their prospects to reach out to them and based on that, they curate the list and provide it to the sales team.

How Both Sales And Marketing Can Help Any Business to Grow?

Now, as we understand both the terms, the question comes how businesses can use both marketing and sales approaches to help them grow. Here we will discuss the same.

• As I mentioned above, both sales and marketing strategies are focused on customers and if they work in tandem then it helps brands to create better customer personas which means more qualified leads.
• It creates the much needed feedback loop. A good relationship between sales and marketing means a good communication channel between them. Sometimes sales teams aren’t able to close deals because marketing is done to the wrong audience and on other occasions marketing teams can’t target the right audience just because they don’t have the right input from the sales team. Therefore a strong bond between these two teams means a better feedback loop.
• Businesses get to focus on the right metrics. If you have ever been to those monthly meetings then you would know that sales and marketing reports are everything. I mean clear reporting helps people to point out the clear problems and clear problems lead to clear solutions. Hence to get to the right solutions businesses can focus on the right metrics found through proper reporting.
• Also it is obvious to expect an increase in revenue. Since marketing and sales are the only two teams who would be majorly responsible for the sales of a product and as they become better at their strategies the revenue is meant to get better.

The mentioned above are some few ways in which both marketing and sales teams can help any business grow and I am sure that there are still 100 other ways through which they can help any business.

Conclusion

That’s all!

I hope that all of your doubts about sales and marketing differences must be clear. In case if you still think that businesses can work depending on one single team, then it is not possible. It would be best to have both a sales and marketing team to double up your business revenue.