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Q: What’s the difference between sales and marketing, doesn’t it boil down to the same thing?

Sep 27 2007

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Answered by: Jackie Jarvis Ask a question

I tend to define marketing as everything you do to communicate your business to both your existing and potential customers. A sale happens when someone makes a decision to buy – marketing is what gets them there. So that would be everything up until that point when they make their decision.

Marketing is everything you do because everything influences how that customers ultimately feels about you and your business. That could be an email, your sales proposal, your sales presentation, the questions you ask, your sales copy, a newsletter, how the phone is answered, an advert, website, your brand image, business card, how you communicate, your window display, an event you hold, the press release you send out etc. This is why it is important to get it all right because if you want to get a sale what happens in advance will ultimately influence your success.

Comments [3]

Comment by david pearce

Friday 2nd November 2007

thanks Jackie, I have a wonderful on DVD to sell via w/site. Using a great consultant but realise key words is paramount. If you want view Footprints www.footprints-thefilm.com

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Comment by Polly Anderson

Thursday 24th April 2008

I agree with Jackie (again) - marketing is everything you do to get the ball in front of the net, selling is what puts the ball in the back of the goal - so selling is a subset of marketing (or at least, it should be). Marketing is advertising, branding, reputation, logo, colours, corporate message, brochures, website, written custoemr communications. The selling starts when we proactively approach a person / company because we'd like them to spend some money with us within a defined period (usually quite soon).

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Comment by Neil Warren

Sunday 4th May 2008

Ah - if only life were so simple! It might, on the other hand, be possible to define everything you do as selling (but then I would say that wouldn't I - www.modernselling.com) given that the verbal, one-to-one approach must have come before we started to add in the bolt-ons of a business card, brochure, advert or whatever. And it is interesting to note that the history of advertising and marketing is littered with "marketing" people trying to define themselves as "the persuaders" or producers of copy "that really sells" etc. etc.. So perhaps marketing is the subset of selling? Semantics really, and probably easier to think of marketing as having to do with non-human sales material, whereas the selling sphere will mostly equate to people interacting? Either way, it is vital that it is all joined up activity, I'm sure.

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