Sales and marketing are two pillars of a business that work concurrently to achieve the objectives of a company. Marketing helps companies to capture potential customers, while without sales a company cannot run for long. Many people use the two terms – sales and marketing – interchangeably, however, the fact is there are slight differences between the two. For students willing to take up roles in sales and marketing as a career, it is important to understand the differences to pursue the role better.
In this post, we are discussing - what is marketing and sales - their differences and importance for businesses.
Get Complete Details From Expert
Request a call →
What is Sales?
The process of selling products including goods and services is called Sales. It is a process that converts potential customers into buyers. The buyer buys the products or service by offering a pre-decided amount to the seller who gives the product or service.
Key features of Sales:
· To increase the sale of products to boost the revenue of a company
· To attract new customers and retain old ones
· To adopt different practices to boost sales
· To enhance the productivity of sales representatives
Benefits of Sales
· Sales boost awareness of the products offered by a company
· Sales help to activate latent customers
· Sales tactics make customers active and engaged
· Sales enhance brand reputation
· It boosts the volume of products
· It ensures customer satisfaction
What is Marketing?
Marketing is the process of attracting customers and making them interested in your products and services using various strategies. Businesses generally adopt a collection of gimmicks and promotional activities to enhance brand awareness and boost sales of their products. Marketing also focuses on augmenting customer-brand relations. Marketing is a vast area that includes advertising, public relations, social media, relationship marketing, and more.
Key features of Marketing:
· It focuses on attracting customers to new products and services to enhance sales
· To boost a company’s profit
· To enhance business awareness among more and more people
· To increase digital presence and website traffic
Benefits of Marketing:
· Boosts brand awareness
· Appeal to latent customers
· Work to create brand loyalty
· Enhance brand image
What is the difference between sales and marketing?
Below are some key differences between sales and marketing to increase your understanding of the two:
· Focus
Sales is more focused on selling a product while marketing concentrates on the needs of customers and assisting them in choosing the right product.
· Philosophy
Sales work on the philosophy that customers want whatever the company is selling. Alternatively, marketing works on the philosophy that the company sells/produces what the client is looking for.
· Target
Sales targets short-term outcomes while marketing targets long-term results.
· Emphasis
Sales have more to do with the price and features of a product, while marketing emphasizes on value and benefits of a product.
· Knowledge
The sales team of a company must know their product thoroughly and also about the products offered by competitors. The marketing team should thoroughly know its client and the various ways in which the client's requirements can be satisfied.
· Strategy
The sales department of a company focuses on ‘Push’ communications, while the marketing department of a company uses ‘Pull’ communications. So, the sales team pushes consumers to products, while the marketing team attracts consumers to products.
· Promotion
Sales use price promotion and discounts to encourage impulsive buying of consumers, while marketing doesn’t use these tricks to speed up purchases. It allows thoughtful buying for consumers.
· Performance Measurement
The performance of sales is measured through various metrics of sales productivity, lead response, etc., while marketing performance is measured through metrics like customer acquisition, lead generation, website engagement, etc.
Take The Next Step In Your Career ?
EnrolL Now →Final Words
Sales and marketing are two different concepts. However, when aligned together, they always give the best results. Hence, sales and marketing teams must sync up regularly to track goals that they share and to remove roadblocks. This will help the business to achieve its goals through valuable insights shared by each team.
As discussed in the post, the importance of sales and marketing is indispensable for a business. Hence, sales and marketing professionals are highly sought-after and serve important roles in an organization. If you are eyeing significant roles in sales and marketing, it is important to pursue a course to boost your knowledge and skills. An MBA in sales and marketing, an executive diploma in sales and marketing, and other online certification courses are available that can be pursued by interested students who want a career in sales and marketing.
For excellent online courses in sales and marketing, you can trust Amity Online University. Visit the portal to learn more.
