One of the more common questions I get from clients is: “What is the difference between marketing and sales?” If this is a question for you, you are not alone.
Marketing and Sales are related, but not interchangeable. For solopreneurs or small teams on which employees wear multiple hats, the distinction may seem irrelevant. However, even when one person is responsible for all the marketing and all the sales, knowing the difference between the two activities will help to clarify the process, the roles of each, and how to use both sides of the coin effectively in your strategy.
Let’s break down the difference between marketing and sales in a simple way. Marketing is getting your message to your audience and connecting potential customers with your company. Sales is the process of closing the deal.
For those with small businesses, you may be responsible for both the marketing and sales in your company, but that does not mean that they are interchangeable in any given conversation.
Remember the Rule of Seven? In the world of sales, a lead is qualified only after you have made a number of impressions on them. In the Rule of Seven, it is said that seven touches is the average number of impressions needed before you will see significant improvement in sales conversions (successfully closing deals). Marketing is the way you make those touches. For more information about the Rule of Seven and how you can use it generate more sales, read this!
The difference between marketing and sales is that, marketing is not about asking for the big sale right now but about getting your company name, values, tone out there for the potential customer to see. It could involve a hook offering or a giveaway to get the lead into a funnel that exposes them to further marketing messages.
Marketing is not about asking for the big sale right now. #smallbiz #marketingtips #smallbusiness #smb #business #entrepreneur Share on XIn a company with robust systems, marketing touches would be tracked. After a certain point the sales team would swoop in to take the networking to the next level and shift to the process of making the sale.
The advantage that small businesses have is that it is easier to use the information you get from the sales process for future marketing endeavors. If you are a solopreneur talking to every customer and lead, you can start to put a face to your target market and get a clearer picture of how to best market to it. This information is easier to lose when a big company has separate marketing and sales teams.
But, as a smaller company, you will benefit from creating at least the basics of the type of systems that a larger, more robust company might have. Having a process for how you will approach potential customers, determining the type of marketing you will do to continue to make impressions on them without losing them, and then knowing how you will lead them to make a sale when ready will serve you well!
Looking for advice on scaling up your marketing and sales? Read here!