In any business, all the moving parts and pieces should function to achieve a common goal. Sometimes, however, the lines of demarcation between departments can be hard to perceive. For that reason, business owners and operators offend find themselves asking, “Are marketing and sales the same thing?”
While marketing and sales are two separate departments or sectors of your business, they should work together towards a common goal.
Marketing
Marketing connects with your audience and lures business in. Anything activity that is focused on generating sales leads would be considered part of your marketing plan. The primary goal of marketing is to promote your company, brand, product, or service by connecting with your target audience. Marketing teams use all the tools at their disposal to connect–SEO, social media, email campaigns, and other traditional marketing strategies. In many ways, marketing involves a process of one-to-many. Your marketing department amplifies your product or service.
Marketing is many-to-one and often makes first introductions for your company. Sales is one-on-one and brings everything home by converting on those connections.
Sales
While marketers focus on generating attention and making initial contact with your customer base, your sales team is all about closing the deal. Sales departments work directly with leads–often generated by your marketing team–to drive conversions. If marketing is one-to-many, sales is more one-on-one and involves building relationships that lead to returns. Often times sales involves more individual attention directed towards a potential client, contact, or customer. Sales teams measure success by quotas and conversions.
When your business is functioning correctly, marketing and sales are the perfect combination. Imagine marketing as being the bait and sales serving as the hook. Together they lure and land clients and build profit margins that lead to exponential growth.
One of the best ways to measure the health of your business is through a marketing and sales analysis. By collecting and unpacking important data, dotedison can give insight into what is working and what needs improvement. Strengthening both sides of the marketing-sales equation will lead to stronger performance.