What is Relationship between Sales and Marketing?

"Sales and Marketing Relationship"

Many people confuse between sales and marketing.

Sales and marketing are two different depts.

Both are independent of each other and yet interdependent.

Both these dept are focused on achieving revenue goals of the company. Both complement each other to achieve this common goal.

Neither sales run the marketing dept nor marketing run sales dept.

Each dept influences the strategies and tactics of the other dept.

For example if marketing dept launches some trade scheme or consumer scheme , the sales dept is responsible for launching that scheme in market successfully.

Similarly when the sales are down due to some external reasons then the sales dept may ask marketing dept to run some sales promotion or other schemes to increase the sales of the company.

So you see both depend on each other and walk on the road to company revenue by holding each other’s hands.

But both these silos function in different ways to achieve their common goal.

Both these functions are measured on different metrics.

In many companies it is very challenging to get both the depts agree on something.

To help you understand it better let us understand what both mean.

                                                Image: IBTA Arabia

Marketing:

Marketing is focused on generating awareness of company's products in the mind of consumers. Marketing achieves this objective by planning and executing right communication strategies ( right communication in the right channel to ensure that the communication reaches the target audience at the least cost) to reach the right target audience.

Marketing function is focused on running campaigns or promotion strategies to engender a desire to buy and/or experience company's products/services.

Marketing function is also responsible for doing marketing research to come up with right products (First P) in the right packaging (Second P) to ensure it reaches more number of customers by offering it at the right price (third P).

Another function of marketing is to induce the customers to buy the product by running attractive promotions (fourth P) and campaigns on the products.

In nutshell the marketing function is responsible for ensuring the demand generation of company’s products/services by planning different strategies in all four Ps.

Marketing operates in the back ground just helping create right aura around products to motivate customer into buying product/service.

Sales

Sales function on the other hand focuses on ensuring the placement (another P) of company’s products at the right outlets.

Sales function is focused on increasing the availability and visibility of company’s products/services at more number of outlets/points.

Sales places the product on retail shelves and marketing helps in tertiary sale of these products from retail shelves by drawing more and more customers to shops by advertising and sales promotion activities.

If marketing is software which works in the back ground unseen but still performing functions, then sales is hardware where the sales people meet the customers in person and motivate them to buy the products/services which were well communicated by the marketing dept.

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Happy Living !

Mritunjaya Malhan

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