Many people are confused by the difference between sales and marketing, I know this because it is a subject I come across often when dealing with my own clients. Marketing people deal with markets that contain many potential customers and they talk to them as a group. Whereas sales people deal with a few customers and talk to them one at a time.
There is a lot of overlap between the marketing role and the sales role and this can sometimes cause confusion and in some cases conflict.
It’s important to understand that if you are looking for someone to sell your products or services then you are looking for a salesperson and if you need someone to promote your brand or business, build awareness and keep your brand top of mind to bring potential clients into your orbit, then you need a marketing person.
In the same breath, Marketing and sales go hand in hand. The two roles need each other. Marketers create promotional material that sales utilise to attract new clients. So while Marketing works to attract the attention of potential customers, sales must identify those potential customers who are seriously interested in buying and weed out the time-wasters.
Social Media Marketing is no different. Your social media marketer is there to build brand awareness. Brands with good brand awareness are ones that frequently get brought up in conversation and become big players.
Social media is a great platform for brands to maintain customer relationships, while also having the opportunity to be found by new leads. In fact, a lot of people learn about new brands because it was mentioned by a friend on social media.
I hope that this simple short blog helps some of you out there to understand the difference between marketing and sales a little better, so you can select the right kind of people to help you promote & sell your brand in 2020 and beyond.