Marketing vs. Sales

As virtually everyone already knows, marketing and sales are intertwined. There’s a common thread passing through them. A contrast exists between the two. Okay, okay.. enough clichéd analogies expressing their similarity. Now, how do they differ?

For clarification purposes, it’s important to note that we’re comparing both of these from an online perspective, particularly that of the potential buyer.

Marketing

In this digital landscape, marketing tends to be viewed as any passive, free form of advertising; organic SEO (i.e., search engine optimization), social media marketing (through standard pages, profiles, and channels), and podcasting are a few examples. They’re, basically, variations of content/inbound marketing.

But the more traditional (and less technical) outbound marketing (meaning, directly contacting individuals and/or companies/organizations in hopes that they’ll purchase your products/services) can be free, too.

The latter, a more modern (but not so modern) way of handing out your business card, may not be as effective (mainly because it’s often perceived as aggressive, intrusive, and/or disruptive) — but it continues to have its place, especially within B2B (i.e., business-to-business) sectors. Another notable downside is that it offers a very finite timeline.

With everything being easily shareable online, word-of-mouth marketing naturally has its place as well; when things are going great in this regard, it usually means they’re going viral. When they’re not… well, crickets. There isn’t much of an in-between, since direct referrals (through email, for example) are somewhat a thing of the past.

Sales

Closing aside, sales is also marketing — albeit a pro-active and/or paid form of marketing… hence why it tends to run dry as wallets thin down (similar to outbound marketing’s necessity for repetition). SEM (i.e., search engine marketing), in-feed social media ads, and advertisements placed within & beside your favorite videos on popular video-sharing sites are a couple of premium solutions to getting noticed (i.e., getting traffic/visibility) on the Internet — hopefully by your target market/customers, primarily.

So, while passive marketing says ‘Hey, we’re offering great free content, information, entertainment, and/or stuff!’, sales is saying ‘Buy my stuff because it’s the best!’.

Passive marketing (essentially warming people up to buy) requires an investment of time, especially. Sales (both the pitch & closing part of a transaction) takes money to enjoy fruitful returns. Your R.O.I. ultimately depends on how much of each is invested, how good your goods & services are, and several other factors (such as level of productivity, quality of delivery, workflow processes/methods, tech/customer support, etc).

In the end, though, something needs to be sold (and sold regularly) for either to be sustainable. It’s an obvious given, but a note-worthy mention nonetheless… because if you have a long-term project in mind, simply building up an audience may prove to be beyond cumbersome. In other words, we wouldn’t want you to give up altogether (after having spent so much effort & energy, time, and/or money propping up your brand).