20 Aug The Difference Between Marketing And Sales

The simple way to explain the difference between marketing and sales is this:

Marketing attracts leads and potential clients to your company and its service or product.

Sales work with potential clients delivered by marketing activity to reinforce the value of your company’s solution.

This ensures those potential client leads are converted into paying customers.

Sales can also be used to upsell more products or higher levels of service to existing companies or to retain and renew business from existing customers.

The Activities Involved

‘Sales’ is a term that is used to describe particular activities that lead to goods or services being sold. A sales person is responsible for managing any relationship with their potential clients. They also provide solutions for the potential client and lead to a sale.

‘Marketing’ involves every activity that sparks an interest in a business. Marketers use analysis and market research to understand the interests of any future customer. A marketing department is responsible for running the campaigns that ultimately attract people to the product, service, or brand.

There are a few major differences between sales and marketing:

• Marketing concentrates its efforts on the public or larger groups
• Sales targets much smaller groups or subsections of the public

The Alignment of Marketing and Sales

We can create an alignment of both marketing and sales by creating an SLA. This is a contract that establishes deliverables that need to be put in place. These deliverables show what one of the two parties have agreed to provide the other. This is perhaps the best way for marketing and sales teams to form some sort of partnership.

Defining Goals

In the Service Level Agreement, each department will define their goals, identify the potential personas of the buyer. They might also identify the ideal client profile. In addition to this, they will standardize the lead definitions. The Service Level Agreement will determine the protocol for lead management. Lastly, it will outline how both the sales and marketing performance is measured.

When both marketing and sales are more aligned it’s likely that a business will attract more leads and, therefore, generate more revenue.