Difference between Sales & Marketing

Certify and Increase Opportunity.
Be
Govt. Certified Marketing Manager

Marketing and sales both are the important activities for every organization. Marketing is a broader term than sales. It consists public relations, branding, advertising, sales etc. Hence sales is the one part or activity of the marketing. Marketing is not related with the closing the sale. When you interacting with the consumer and closing the sale then it is called sales.

Marketing is creating the demand in the market while sales is fulfilling that demand. Marketing is more related with branding while sales is related with one on one marketing. For example, when you do all activities to reach mass audiences and consumers to create demand then you are doing marketing and when you are reaching with your prospects one by one via direct calls then you are doing sales. Sales is a direct activity toward the company’s revenue whereas marketing is an indirect approach.

In small firms usually marketing and sales both are handled by the same department while in the big firms or organizations there are different departments for both the activities.

Marketing creates a brand image of the product or service while sales is only related with selling the product or service. Both the activities are interrelated at the some point of the time. When a person is doing marketing then he is doing sales on a large scale while when a person selling then at the same time he is doing marketing.

Without marketing you can not sale the product or service. Therefore marketing is more important than sales.

There is one more important difference between marketing and sales and that is the focus. Marketing focuses on long term concerns while sales is related with short term focus.

Marketing is related with educating and creating awareness of the product or service in the market. Sales is also related with educating and creating awareness but the difference is scale. Marketing does these activities on a huge scale while sales does these activities on very short scale and most of the times one on one basis. Sales is more related with interpersonal and interaction with prospects.

The differences between marketing and sales are as follows:

• Marketing is considered to be a wider term than sales. It includes identifying customers, producing innovative products, branding, advertising, public relations,sales, etc. Thus, sales is just a stage or an activity of marketing.
• Marketing is the process of creating demand for a product in the market whereas sales is refers to fulfilling these demands.
• Marketing helps the organisation to create a brand image of the product or service in the minds of the people while sales involves the selling of that product or service.
• Marketing is an indirect activity whereas sales is a direct activity.
• For example; when you do all the activities to reach your target audiences (i.e; consumers) to create demand then it is said to be marketing. You are said to do sales when you are achieving your goals by directly selling your products via direct calls or so.
• Marketing targets a large group or the general public. Sales on the however aims at individuals.
• Marketing looks to generate leads while sales tries to convert the leads into orders or purchases.
• Marketing involves a long term process that comprises brand building, advertisements etc. whereas sales is a short term process of identifying the target consumer.
• Though Marketing and Sales differ in the above said ways, they are interlinked and interconnected which are aimed to increase in revenue.b