Marketing vs Sales
The gap between marketing and sales is often a small crack in small organizations. However, that gap is more like a wide gulf in large organizations. The size difference is a result of the broad definition of marketing. We believe, in short, marketing enables sales to happen. Marketing includes all the things that lead someone to be ready to make a purchase. Is a brochure sales? No. Can it enable sales? Yes.
Marketing helps generate sales. If someone comes across your brochure and then picks up a phone and calls you or visits your website to buy something – then mission accomplished! It helped create sales. Where this line gets fuzzy are things like eCommerce websites. Where does the line get drawn there? There are many elements of marketing on an eCommerce website: the photos, the copy, the branding, and the way the website works. But the actual transaction is sales.
Why does this matter? It’s important to know who is responsible for what. If your sales teams need something to help enable sales, marketing should be responsive to that. If it’s a new sales slide show or a new landing page on the website, those are tools that marketing can provide to help sales be successful.
Working with an outside marketing agency can be self-defeating if you are horrible at sales. Bad sales skills can kill good marketing. Likewise, bad marketing slows good sales. To help everyone be successful, we need to ensure open communication between marketing and sales. We need to help ensure each part is doing a good job with their tasks and that they are not afraid to ask for help.
In each organization, it is important to break down the goals of each department. In marketing, is the goal to generate leads for sales to then follow up with? Is it to grow the public perception of the organization? Is it to generate eCommerce sales? In your organization, it will be important to specify where sales and marketing mesh and who is responsible for what. The smaller the organization, the more cross over happens, especially when the CEO/Owner is responsible for all of it.
This blog post is a portion of Attention and Action. The book walks you through the marketing process that Adelsberger Marketing follows with its clients. You can read this book for free as a blog on the Adelsberger Marketing website or purchase on Amazon.com.
