Difference between sales and marketing...

Hello and welcome Edify Educational Society. In today's lesson where we're looking at the difference between sales and marketing...

So, What's the difference between sales and marketing? Isn't it the case that if you're marketing to someone you are selling and if so, does this make marketing the same as selling?
Many small businesses bundle both disciplines together into a singular sales and marketing department. And this can make it even harder to understand the difference between sales and marketing...
But let's clear this up straight away by saying that sales and marketing are not the same.

Read: 4 p's of marketing
                7ps of marketing services
So,
what is the difference?
Well in fact sale is a subset of marketing. Marketing begins before sales. marketing starts by identifying the needs of the customer. For example. - through market research. It then takes steps to fulfil these needs and this is done by shaping products so they match the needs of the customer. and then once the products are rather ready Marketing is about promoting, the product to take someone who has never heard of you or your company through a series of steps, then the steps begin when the person becomes aware of your company for the first time and each subsequent step moves them closer and closer to becoming a customer.
Now at the point, they are ready to actually become a customer. A sales professional often takes over and closes the sale and that is how sales fit in.
But marketing doesn't just end there. It also covers obeying the relationship after the sales professional has complete their job.. and it does this for two reasons, -
First to encourage customers to become repeat customers. and secondly to encourage customers to refer to other customers. for example, - through online reviews.
Now, these tasks that happen us after a customer has bought the product go by the name of customer relationship management. So, it should be clear by now that, marketing is so much more than sales. It is made up of- brand management, market research. value creation, pricing strategies, customer relationship management, advertising and it does include sales amongst other things as well.
Now if you're still a little confused about the difference between sales and marketing, then the following table should help. It clarifies

how each discipline has a different focus on some common themes.

Task	Marketing	Sales
Audience	Marketing focuses on one too many. Many people are reached by a single marketing campaign	Sales on the other hand focus one-to-one basis. So, sales happen when one person helps another to get across the line to become a customer.
Strategy	Strategy Marketing effort to draw people towards the company.	whereas sales try to push people over the line
time horizon	Marketing focuses on the long term how can we grow our sales over the longer term	Conversely, sales focused on the short term they are judged on what they sell each day or each week
targets	marketing relies on sales to close deals	but sales relies on marketing to generate leads
product	marketing has a range of products that they shape to meet the needs of the customer	sales have a product or products that they need to sell today
buying cycle	marketing develops relationships with new customers and builds long-lasting relationships with existing customers	sales focus on short-term relationships to get people to buy the product today or tomorrow
promotions	Marketing promotions are created to resonate with the target audience and anyone who has an influence on that target audience	For sales, promotions are generally about discounts offered to close the deal
reputation	marketing is concerned with building and maintaining the brand's reputation	sales are concerned with relationships it's a relationship-driven it's about the relationship between the salesperson and the customer

Summary

So, in summary, sales and marketing are often mistaken for being the same discipline. And it's easy to see why this happens when you consider the siddur that many companies bundle both disciplines into a single sales and marketing department. But the key distinction that we've looked at in this blog is that - Sales is actually a subset of marketing and it is something that happens within the end-to-end marketing process.

So that's it for this blog. Thanks for reading

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