Get a wide variety of answers about sales and marketing strategy

Posted by John on January 20th, 2018

Once I sit down to discuss software needs along with business owners I often notice the blurring of the line between advertising sales. Don't get me wrong, marketing and sales are very closely related. But it is essential for anyone running a company to understand the way they differ and how to approach both when talking about business automation.

My favorite summary is: 'Marketing brings people to the door; sales will get them through the door'. Digital marketing strategy is in charge of bringing people to the door of a person business. So making them aware of your own existence. Letting them know that you may have a means to their problem or a product they really want. Sales come into play once they have started contact with your organization. Sales take somebody who has come to your door over the threshold. So that your sales team should use their abilities to turn vaguely interested leads in to paying customers.

Another way to look at it can be the level of interaction involved. For example advertising has less interaction and is usually more one sided. You operate an ad in the paper that someone reads. At this stage there is no backwards and forwards between you and the consumer. The sales phase tends to be more interactive. Calls, email messages or even letters may be exchanged among leads and your sales team. Or they might sit down to a face to face meeting in which the customer asks questions about the item and the sales representative answers all those questions (in the hopes associated with closing a sale).

I think most of the confusion comes from situations where among the processes is short or lacking completely. For example you may send out the sales letter which contains a purchase form. While a portion of people will certainly call your office for more information, quite a few people will just go ahead and fill out the purchase form. In this example there was absolutely no interaction but they still ended up arriving 'through the door'. So could it be sales or marketing?

When I present this question to business owners we often get a wide variety of answers. But I might argue that it is marketing. Sometimes your own marketing will have a message sufficiently effective to induce a sale without any product sales interaction.

So why is this distinction essential? If you want to have a successful business you have to achieve a balance between sales sales and marketing strategy. If you have a strong marketing department along with a poor salesmanship you will get plenty of prospects but struggle to turn them in to paying customers. On the flip side of the gold coin a strong sales team is useless when they don't have enough new leads arriving through to keep them busy. By knowing marketing and sales as separate actions you can identify where your weak points are and take action to bring your business back into alignment.

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