As time has progressed, I feel like people understand less and less the differences between Marketing and Sales. For some reason companies twist the two together thinking they’re optimizing the organizations ability to create sales. With snazzy phrases like “Synergistic Approach” and “LEAN Management Structure”, the current trend is do more with less, to keep costs low. The reality is NOT concentrated effort, these cost saving measures are actually diluting and fragmenting a customers ability to Know, Like and Trust. Let’s look at the difference between Marketing and Sales.

*Terms to Know

General Audience – Anyone and everyone with the possibility of consuming adverting or held within a Marketing Channel. Examples would be general email lists, people on Facebook, people on LinkedIn, people on YouTube, people listening to the radio, people watching TV, people in the eye shot of smoke signals, people within a few miles of an airplane writing smoke signals. Marketing is constantly refining messaging based on it’s ability to pull in “Perfect Customers”.

Suspect – These people are lightly engaged with a business, consuming information on one or more communication channels. Generally suspects have never purchased from the company and are starting to buy into the value proposition of one or more products/service offerings. Marketing is working to transition General Audiences to Suspects pulling them over to Prospects.

Prospect – These people are transitioned Suspects from Marketing to Sales. Prospects should all have some type of “Sales Process” to guide the customer journey. This “Sales Process” for Prospects is specific to the potential customers’ products and services interest. These Stages and Tasks are designed to support and drive the customer journey forward with the deliverable in mind. Sales is responsible for supporting this sales cycle.

Customer – One time purchaser of products and/or services knows, likes and superficially trusts the company

Client – A customer who has purchased on multiple occasions and considers the company a trusted adviser

Marketing

An organizations ability to convey a value proposition to potential customers, drawing them in, is created ahead of any sales process. Marketing should be focused on generating interest with engaging, creative campaigns, projecting information to targeted audiences. Broadcasting the various products and services an organization offers, Marketing creates a stir catching the potential customers eye. By informing audiences of a businesses offering, Marketing should have a distinct goal of landing a prospect in front of Sales people at a particular Stage and Task in the sales process. Many people describe this as a “Warm” Lead.

This preliminary introduction is designed to help “Suspects” get to know an organization. Building rapport and ushering potential customers into a certain level of curiosity, Marketing supports purposeful advertising campaigns. Depending on the communication channel (Email, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Radio, TV, Smoke Signals, Sky Writing), audiences typically are not going to purchase in this phase. As the psychology goes, a certain level of awareness is necessary before a “Suspect” to “Prospect” transition can be made. By honing buying motives, Marketing prepares potential customers for product offering and the upcoming sales process.

Sales

A few times a week somebody approaches me as an expert in sales, telling me their tactics are the driving force behind winning customers. This could be true, however if the “Suspect” in transition is properly vetted then polished Salespeople should be carrying the customer journey momentum forward. Sure, tactics are important, moreover the value proposition presented to the “Prospect” should seed the idea of purchase. As Sales collaborates with Marketing to target audience or the “Perfect Customer”, a complimentary sales process to the value proposition, should be in line with the steps a customer needs to make a purchase.

Zooming out to take the long view, we notice sales process spends the shortest amount of time in the customer journey. If designed correctly, Marketing and Customer Service tend to be the longer cycle times of all the area’s in the journey. The product/service definition and delivery tend to dominate the time companies interact with customers. Sales should be tactically superior by design, so Marketing can depend on execution and downline production delivers on Sales promises.

Conclusion

Understanding Marketing and Sales have distinctly different characteristics is really important as organizations evolve. “Tried and true” tactics certainly draw customers in but clearly defining workflow creates space for better targeting, supported customer journey and down stream product/service support. Looking at Marketing as priming for Sales ignition draws an illustration for the mechanics of making business engines run. Developing a Known, Liked and Trusted model reflects how customer journey drives clients buy-in as trusted advisers in a companies subject matter expertise.

Simplesoft Solutions, Inc. is a customer relationship management (CRM) business consulting and software development firm in Cincinnati/Dayton OH surrounding areas. We provide implementation, integration, development and training for Infor CRM (formerly Saleslogix). We have built our business on an ability to creatively adapt CRM to meet the varying needs of our customers’ businesses. We have been helping our customers develop stronger relationships with their customers through improved sales, marketing, customer service, and support processes since 1994.