Marketing And Sales: What You Need To Know

Though Marketing and Sales must go hand-in-hand to achieve any positive growth, in reality it is mostly the reverse. While bad marketing for a good product can be as disastrous as taking a joy ride in a sabotaged aircraft, poor turn over need not necessarily be blamed on unrealistic marketing policy alone.

Before delving deeper into the subject it needs to be mentioned here that though there is a lot of relationship between the two, but it can be safely stated that ‘Marketing’ is a much wider term than ‘Sales’. Sales are basically a part of Marketing. In other words, a company has a marketing policy, and sales is one mean in which the company tries to meet its marketing plans.

But ironically there is often a conflict between these two departments. The Marketing people can feel the pulse of the industry and provide leads, but are often rebuffed by the Sales people who argue that their ‘feelers’ were off beam. Sales people often claim that the figures fell shorter than the projected volume because of this. Whatever be the cases, it is evident that each undervalues the other to such extent that their integration, a factor much is needed to keep the business going, ultimately becomes a myth.

To achieve synch among Marketing and Sales it may become necessary for the Marketing people to get involved in all levels of product development, taking along the Sales personnel with them so that they too can appreciate the leads to be ultimately supplied by the Marketers. In other words, starting at the ground root level and then progressively going up together, instead of taking up the marketing at any mid-stage alone might be fruitful. Also, Marketing's increasing influence in each phase of an organization's growth deeply affects its relationship with Sales.

But in spite of the tension between these two departments, both Marketing and Sales need to work together for the success of any business. Performance of other departments too vastly depends on this relationship. And that is why modern day management attempts to create a friendly atmosphere where marketing and sales works in synch.

Sales, Marketing and the Internet

When it comes to the online world, can marketing and sales be differentiated? Is the act of selling over the Internet through an online store an act of marketing? Or is it sales?

Well the fact is, selling a product or products or a service over the Internet is primarily sales. And the act of supporting this function is marketing.

Take for example the online major Amazon. When the company does promotional exercise through channels such as popular Television, radio, magazines and billboards, then all these activities can be termed as marketing efforts that are geared towards creating a brand consciousness and brining in web traffic to promote and support sales.

But in many smaller stores, marketing and sales often become one and the same as most of these businesses cannot often afford a bigger marketing exercise and limit themselves just to the exercise of sales.

The Relationship Between Marketing And Sales

When comparing marketing and sales and considering how they relate to one another I always think of the medium sized business where I had my first job. The marketing department people were serious and analytical, always busy with statistics and campaigns and meetings. The sales people were breathless, always on the go, always on the phone or going to meet customers, always on the cusp of some enormous deal, some magic sale that would catapult the company’s turnover way over the annual target. As a junior it seemed to me that the marketing people and the sales people were from two different planets. I now know that they were simply two parts of the same continuum.

Marketing can be described as the set of activities that are undertaken in order to generate leads, while selling is the act of turning a prospect a hot lead into a buyer and later a repeat customer. The marketing and sales functions of any organization are glued together by leads. If there are no leads, the two will fall foul of one another. I saw this in that business I was describing earlier. But leads work both ways. The marketing department has to deliver them and the sales department must act upon them to maximum advantage. But leads must first be generated and that is why marketing tends to overwhelm the sales function when the two are discussed.

The various forms that marketing takes are well known because they are so visible. They range from cold canvassing to brand or corporate advertising, through to the more targeted types of marketing such as direct response advertising and referrals, where the particular benefits of the product is explained to the customer. If this is done properly, then qualified prospects will actually approach the sales people for assistance. Sales people love those leads. It is in fact when the sales people take over the communication function that the lead ceases to be a lead and becomes a prospective customer, then a customer and finally a repeat customer.

Actually I have painted a somewhat idealistic picture of the lead relationship between the marketing function and the sales function. It is just not that simple because not all leads are equal. An extremely tiny percentage leads are customers who are ready to buy. Most of them are merely interested in possibly buying at a future date and some are just mildly interested, just browsing. That’s why it is important to have some sort of lead management system so that potential customers can be turned into buyers and buyers can become repeat customers. All follow up communication should be friendly and informative, definitely not hard sell. The company representative should be regarded as a helpful expert rather than a rabid sales person. Fortunately many of the follow up functions can be automated to take the form of email, direct mail, voice broadcast and fax broadcast. Obviously the lead would be encouraged each time to call directly if they have questions or a ready to buy. The follow up effort is usually a function of the marketing and sales departments combined.