What’s the Difference Between Sales and Marketing? A Simple & Easy Primer

At a basic level, marketing is about attracting people to your business and making them interested in what you offer. Sales, on the other hand, is about working directly with potential customers to show them how your business can solve their problems and turn them into paying customers. While this sounds simple, the difference between sales and marketing is a bit more detailed than that.

In this article, we’ll break down what each function does, how they differ in planning, goals, and more. We’ll also share tips on how to keep sales and marketing working together effectively in your business.

Understanding Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing are both essential for bringing in customers and increasing revenue. But what exactly do they do?

Sales focuses on activities that lead directly to selling a product or service. Salespeople build relationships with potential clients, showing them the value of what the company offers, and guide them toward making a purchase.

Marketing, on the other hand, is about sparking interest in your business. It involves researching potential customers, understanding their needs, and creating campaigns to draw them in. Marketing’s job is to get people excited about what your business provides.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott, a digital marketing expert, compares sales and marketing to siblings with the same goal: helping a company succeed. He explains, “Marketing brings attention to the product, while sales focuses on closing the deal and ensuring customer satisfaction.”

Although both sales and marketing aim to help the company grow, their roles are different, with some areas overlapping. Let’s explore the differences a bit further.

Marketing vs. Sales: Understanding the Key Differences

To make sure your marketing and sales departments are set up for success, both individually and as a team, it’s important to know how each one works. Here’s an easy breakdown of the key differences in planning, goals, tools, and more.

1. Planning

Both marketing and sales plans begin by looking at the company’s history, overall goals, and key projects. But after that, they take different paths.

A marketing plan goes into detail about the product, its price, target customers, and where it will be sold. This is also called the 4Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. It sets goals, chooses marketing channels, and creates a budget for the campaigns.

Sales plans, on the other hand, focus more on the sales process. They cover team structure, target market, goals, and an action plan. The plan also includes the tools and resources needed to hit sales targets.

2. Goals

While both sales and marketing aim to generate revenue, they have different specific goals to reach that bigger target.

The main goal of marketing is to promote the company, its products, and its brand. Marketers focus on how products meet customer needs and wants, with goals that often take a longer time, as campaigns can run for months or years.

Sales, on the other hand, is more about hitting short-term goals. Sales teams focus on monthly quotas and the volume of sales. They set targets to meet the company’s overall revenue goals.

3. Tools and Resources

Sales and marketing teams use different tools, but they also share a few.

Both teams use CRM databases to manage customer relationships at different stages. They also use social media, marketers promote content, while sales teams use it for social selling.

Here are some tools that are specific to each team:

Marketing Tools:

• Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools
• Project management tools
• Data reporting software
• Content creation tools

Sales Tools:

• Meetings apps
• Document management tools
• Invoicing software
• Email management tools
• Inventory and order management software

New tools, like AI and live chat, are also being used by both teams to personalize their communication with customers. It’s important for organizations to stay updated with these new technologies to remain competitive.

4. Strategies:

Since marketing and sales have different goals, their strategies are also different. Common marketing strategies include:

• Internet marketing
• Print marketing
• Blog marketing
• SEO
• Social media marketing
• Video marketing

Sales strategies vary depending on the company and market, but may include methods like:

• SPIN Selling
• Solution Selling
• N.E.A.T. Selling
• Conceptual Selling
• SNAP Selling
• CustomerCentric Selling
• Inbound Selling
• MEDDIC
• The Challenger Sale
• The Sandler System

These strategies help sales teams guide prospects toward solving a problem or meeting a need, which can lead to closing deals and turning prospects into customers.

How Sales and Marketing Work Together

There are many differences between sales and marketing, but this doesn’t mean they should work in isolation. In fact, when these two departments align, the results can be powerful for the business.

As branding expert Sean Dougherty explains, sales and marketing often feel disconnected. Marketing creates the message, and sales closes the deals. However, the connection between them can sometimes get lost. But when sales and marketing work together, qualified leads improve, and revenue increases. This partnership creates a unified approach that leads to success.

So, how can sales and marketing work together in practice? First, it’s important to clearly define the processes, goals, tools, and strategies each department will follow. Addressing any conflicts between them is also crucial.

One effective tool for ensuring alignment is a service-level agreement (SLA). An SLA is a contract that outlines the deliverables each department agrees to provide. It helps sales and marketing work as a team, with shared goals and agreed-upon lead definitions. The SLA also sets a framework for lead management and how performance will be measured.

When both sales and marketing work within a strong SLA, they can attract and qualify more leads, leading to increased revenue.

The Power of a Marketing and Sales Partnership

The key to success is clear roles and goals for both sales and marketing. This prevents overlap while ensuring both teams remain closely aligned. Together, they provide the best customer experience and drive the highest revenue for the business.