The Difference Between Marketing and Sales and How to Be Great at Both

Do you know the difference between marketing and sales?

Do you know the one key to being successful at both?

Let’s start by defining both terms.

Marketing is is what you do to attract qualified prospects, and sales is what you do to build relationships and close the deal.

In other words, marketing is everything you do to reach and persuade prospects to give you a chance to sell them. If you think about it, the sales person would have no one to sell to if it weren’t for the marketer.

When you are doing business online, the role of marketing is to drive people (or traffic) to the website. Once you get them there, you want them to take an action — maybe fill out a form requesting more information, subscribe to your mailing list, or buy a product.

For the sales role, your job is to build realtionships and ultimately close the deal. How do you go about building those relationships? By communicating with your prospects, letting them get to know you, getting to know them, and continuing to provide information that is valuable for your target market.

You might have their contact information such as a phone number so you can personally call them and follow up. You might have their physical mailing address so you can send them a personal card. Or you might just have their email address, in which case you want to send them compelling and information-packed emails.

Good marketing and sales share one thing in common: they both begin by putting their prospects first, getting into the hearts and minds of their customers.

For any marketing or sales message to be compelling, it must go beyond the rational, logical thinking and strike the right emotional chord.

Typically, far too much emphasis is put on the product or service, and far too little on the person doing the buying. What are their hot buttons, their core emotional desires?

Keep two important principles in mind:

1. People buy with their emotions and justify with logic.
2. People rarely buy because of features. They mostly buy because of benefits.

So rather than focus on facts or features, ask yourself, “what does it mean to your target market and how will it benefit them?”

If you know what people want, then you’re 90 percent of the way there.

You have to research what people want. How do you do that research?

Talk to people one-on-one. Listen to the requests they make, the questions they ask and their complaints.

Look at the information they make public on forums, blogs and other social media. These are a goldmine of information about what people want.

Supplement your research with an understanding of the 7 reasons people buy:

1. Make money
2. Save money
3. Save time
4. Save effort
5. Improve health
6. Increase pleasure
7. Eliminate pain

Understand the needs of your ideal customer and approach your marketing and sales with this perspective in mind, and watch your results explode.