In the world of business, sales and marketing are two terms that are usually used together and sometimes even interchangeably. While both are primarily aimed at the purpose of increasing the revenue of any business or organization, these two concepts have notable differences that people need to be familiar with.
Simply put, marketing is raising potential customers’ awareness of your business and brand. Sales involves converting those potential customers into paying customers in order to turn viewership into revenue.
What is Sales?
The main purpose of sales is to sell the things that are in stock. This develops relationships with the customers as well as channel partners. The Sales’ perspective starts from within the company toward customers, with its horizon focused on this week, this month, and this quarter. Basically, sales is focused on the NOW.
What is Marketing?
The primary job of marketing is to understand the entire marketplace coming from the customers’ perspective looking at the company and helping in leading the company where this must be in the near future. It is also marketing’s job to guide the organization toward groups or segments of customers and channels which the company will be able to compete with profitably. Marketing needs to help the organization in seeing how it should modify the products being offered, the communication as well as the pricing to ensure that it will meet the end customers or distribution channel.
Key Differences between Sales and Marketing
- Marketing involves a lengthier process of establishing a name for a certain brand and this also involves urging the customers to purchase it even if they do not really need it. Sales, on the other hand, only involve the short-term process of looking for target customers.
- While marketing targets a bigger group or even the general public, sales targets small groups or individuals.
- Marketing is about generating prospects or leads, while sales is about converting the prospects or leads into orders and purchases.