Sales vs Marketing

Do you know the difference between marketing and sales? Let's think about this question for a moment. Without marketing you would not have prospects or leads to follow up with, but yet without a good sales technique and strategy your closing rate may depress you. Marketing and sales should work simultaneously, but in most companies they are departments that don't even speak to each other.

If we broke it down to the basics, marketing is everything that you do to reach and persuade prospects and the sales process is everything that you do to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract. Both are necessities to the success of a business. You cannot do without either process. If you work to strategically combine both efforts you will experience a successful amount of business growth. However, by the same token if the efforts are unbalanced or departments don't communicate it can detour business growth.

Your marketing should consist of strategies that you can measure your reach and work to persuade your prospects that you are the company for them. It's the message that prepares the prospect for the sale. It could consist of advertising, public relations, social media, relationship marketing, brand marketing, viral marketing and direct mail.

The sales process consists of interpersonal interaction. It is often done by a one-on-one meeting, cold calls and networking. It's anything that engages you with the prospect or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance.

Most the time the prospect or potential customer has been driven to you via marketing efforts.

I like to think of it like this, your marketing efforts begin the process of the eight contacts or touchpoints that studies show it takes to move a prospect or potential client to the close of the sale. If marketing is done effectively you can begin to move that prospect from the status of a cold lead to a warm lead. When the prospect hits the"warm" level it's much easier for the sales professional or sales department to close the sale.

Do you see the cycle?

Studies have shown that it takes multiple contacts using both sales and marketing to move the prospect from one level to the next. That is why it is important that you develop a process that combines both sales and marketing. This will enable you to reach prospects at all three levels; cold, warm, and hot. It's all about balance. Make sure that you've integrated the two, marketing and sales. They are not separate. If they are different departments, those departments must talk and communicate in order to be effective.