The idea of marketing and selling is, most likely, on everyone’s radar if they know even a little bit about businesses and how they work! Often, the two are lumped together and the difference between them isn’t really thought about. In fact, many people would consider them to be the same thing. This simply isn’t true, and knowing the real difference between them can help you along in your business journey. You don’t need to have much prior knowledge about either of them to get to grips with it and learn more about them. In this blog post, we will be looking at the difference between marketing and selling, and how you can effectively use each of them, separately or combined, to help your business grow. Or, if you’re just starting out on your business journey, you can use this knowledge to simply learn more about them that you can use in the future.
What is marketing? What is selling?
Firstly, let’s take a quick look at the basic definitions of both marketing and selling. Marketing is the activities that a company does to garner awareness of their business, and promote or encourage the buying or selling of their product. Now, this mentions selling, but what is the basic definition of this term? Well, selling has a couple of definitions. In one way, it is simply what happens when a customer exchanges money for a product or service. To get to this point, the second definition, or the act of selling may occur, wherein the customer is persuaded to part with their cash to get the product or service. It usually involved reinforcing to the customer the values and benefits that marketing told them about, to help convert prospects into customers.
From these definitions, it is easy to see why the differences between marketing and selling can quickly get confusing. After all, both processes essentially involve persuading customers to buy something, generating revenue for the business. But if we look beyond the surface, we can see that there are, in fact, a fair few differences that we must take into account to have a true understanding of the concepts. And that is what we will be looking at next!
What is the difference between marketing and selling?
While there are many similarities between the two, they also definitely have their differences. For example, selling is usually more directly involved with the customer, and persuading them to buy in a more face-to-face scenario, such as a meeting or over the phone. However, marketing is usually more of an indirect way to get your customers buying. Many, many different things come under the umbrella of marketing. This includes everything from adverts on social media, to email marketing campaigns, and even more traditional forms of marketing such as print advertisements or events. The overall aim of marketing is usually to use a combination of these elements to persuade your customers to buy. When it comes to marketing, there is usually no direct contact between the customer and a salesperson. The aim is to use the different elements to persuade the customer why your business has the best product or service for their needs. It may take several different ‘touchpoints’, or forms of marketing, to persuade them to make this purchase.
Furthermore, there is a strong chance that, whatever sort of business you may have, you’ve got several competitors that offer something similar that your customers may be interested in as well. How do you persuade them to buy from you, above anyone else? That’s where the difference between marketing and selling comes in, and the ways in which you can utilise them both together. Firstly, marketing can be used to make your target customer aware of your business, what you sell, and some of the benefits. Then, once they have you on their radar, more direct selling can take over. This usually involves more of a human connection to persuade the customer to buy and really convey why your products or services are better than anyone else’s. In this way, marketing and selling work well together to convert as many customers as possible to buying from your business.
Different methods for different customers.
Whatever your business is, you will have a target market, or target customer in mind. This will be a group of people who are broadly similar in their wants and needs, and how your offering can solve this for them. But, it is important to remember that this group is made up of real individuals. As much as they may have similarities, they will also have some big differences between them. How can you cater to these differences and turn as many of them into paying customers? Again, this is where the difference between marketing and selling can work in your favour.
It is likely that some of your customers will be interested in what you have to offer, but some gentle marketing tactics such as targeted ads is enough to get them to buy from you. In this way, they don’t require any direct selling. They are more than happy to do their own research and make their own minds up. Other customers may be similar to this, but will need more of a nudge to part with their money. So, they may need a bit more marketing to convert them. Whether this is email marketing sending them a discount, or just consistent ads to keep you on their radar, there are many approaches that you can take. However, these people will still not really need much direct selling. For some industries, products, and business types, these strategies generally work well for most customers. Let’s say you were running a fashion business. Many of your customers will simply see your clothes advertised, and buy off the back of that. Some may need more encouragement, such as a sale or discount code. But either way, no direct salespeople are involved in trying to persuade them to buy.
However, for other types of businesses and target customers, selling is far more effective. An example of this is in the insurance industry, or made-to-measure furniture. Even in other industries, some people simply prefer being sold to directly. More indirect marketing strategies may get the customer interested in the product, but they probably will not commit just from that. It could be that they want that human connection with the business that they are buying from. Or, perhaps they want all of the benefits explained to them clearly, by a human being, so that they can make an informed decision. So, the idea of selling and how it is different from marketing really comes into its own, to help you attract those people and turn them into paying customers. When it comes to the difference between marketing and selling, many businesses choose to employ a range of tactics that encompass them both, to ensure that as many sales are made as possible. What works for one business won’t work for another, so it’s all about coming up with the correct strategy to help you on your way.
How to use them both effectively
Every single organisation is different. They will have different goals and products, and so will need different approaches to help combine sales and marketing together and have a cohesive and effective strategy to convert prospects into paying customers. So, what the difference between marketing and selling means to you will be very important here. However, there are some things that you can consider to get a head start on this process, and start thinking about how to combine the two into the best strategy for your business.
Firstly, marketing. What have you done in the past that is effective? Could you try anything new to help bring fresh leads and prospects into the company? If you already have a solid marketing strategy in place, you may not need to put too much thought into this. But, don’t be afraid of trial and error to see what works best, and what isn’t so good! Having a decent marketing strategy that you can slot sales into is the basis of a good combination.
Once you have this, you can start to think about how you can build upon this with more direct selling, helping you to get more sales and ultimately grow your business in terms of products! Is there a certain sector of customers that you could target with sales? Or could it improve your conversion rate in general? Finding an effective way for marketing and selling to work together may take time, but it can bring many benefits to your business when it comes to attracting more customers and growing your business!
Here at Chrysalis Growth, we are here to help small and medium-sized businesses grow their sales and profits using our proven systems that actually work. If you’re looking for innovative business growth solutions that actually work, then we would love to work with you! Visit our website to find out more about what we do, or get in touch today to discuss your individual needs and how we can help you and your business thrive.
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