The Differences Between Sales and Marketing
It's time to unearth a hotly debated, confusing topic: marketing vs. advertising.
Hopefully, we can help people come closer to an understanding of the differences between marketing and advertising. But we cannot promise anything because this debate will continue until the end of time.
In the corporate world, the advertising and marketing departments have two distinct functions. I will try to simplify this as much as possible and others can add to this post if they wish.
Advertising is the message a company sends about its product or service to a large population that listens to radio, watches television, sees a freeway billboard, or drives through a popular city intersection.
Typically, you want hundreds of thousands of eyeballs and ears to see or hear the message. The advertisement may cost, for example, $50,000 but you expect 250,000 people to hear or see it. At a 3% ad response rate, or 7,500 people, and 1% buy rate, or 75 people, the company may sell 50 cars over a three month period.
One of the main characteristics of advertising is that there is little interaction with potential buyers until they call the business. The call-to-action is for prospects to call or drop by the store to inquire about the product or service.
Marketing is the emotion or feeling a company creates to be delivered to a targeted population, usually by a salesperson. The marketing department typically will design its product pitch based on research about solving consumers problems or enhancing an already great situation.
How it gets confusing
A salesperson will say, "I'm going out today to do some marketing". If the salesperson leaves brochures with a prospect without any personal engagement, this is advertising, not marketing. Why? Because the salesperson never asked any questions or received any feedback to discover if the prospect has a need for the salesperson's product or service.
In contrast, if the salesperson meets the prospect and asked some preliminary questions to discover if there is a fit or interest, this is marketing, not advertising.
Other forms of marketing and advertising examples are:
- Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn usually deliver advertising pitches unless the social media person makes first contact with the prospect to learn more about the prospect's needs and wants.
- Booths are advertising until the salesperson engages the prospect with questions about what problems the prospect might have and what solutions your product or service offer. After asking people visiting the booth a few thought provoking questions, booths become marketing opportunities.
- Cold-calling is advertising if the salesperson talks most of the time about his or her product. Cold-calling is marketing if the salesperson tries to identify a problem to solve.
- Passing out business cards is advertising if the salesperson is super charged and giving cards to everyone. It becomes marketing if the salesperson engages conversation and, through discovery, learns that the prospect might be a good fit for the product or service.
- Networking events are opportunities for both marketing and advertising. The advertising begins with the introduction and marketing is initiated if one of the parties follows up to ask discovery questions. If you never follow up, then networking events are simply advertising opportunities.
Advertising is the easiest, costs the most money, and is the most unpredictable.
Marketing is the toughest, costs the least money, and is the most predictable.
Thanks for reading this post.
Recent Comments
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Thanks Josie for sharing