Marketing and Sales: What’s The Difference?

Sales and marketing are concepts that work closely together but fulfill different functions. Many confuse the two, mostly because they have a codependent relationship. To be more exact, sales depend on marketing and wouldn’t exist without it. 

So, what is the difference between the two? Let’s define them:

• Sales = The process that fulfills an existing demand and drives the growth of revenue for your company/brand.
  
  
• Marketing = The process that creates demand by building and maintaining a reputation and connection with your target audience. Marketing can also find an existing demand and simply adjust the product or service to fit it.
  
  

There can be a demand for anything from luxury vacations and solutions to painful problems to education and self-improvement. Marketing consists of multiple stages, as explained in this article, which all coexist in balance with one another.

The target audience depends on your product, and the advertisements you push (and where and when you push them) depend on your target audience and your product. Finally, the process is concluded with a sale. See how sales depend on marketing?

Everything we share in Vavoza Insider is designed to educate and provide you with insight into marketing your brand and making your marketing efficient, lasting, and productive.

Today, however, we would like to return to the basics. Below are some pro tips on how to ensure your marketing efforts result in sales.

But first, enjoy our News & Trends report…

News & Trends: July 2024

Stay in the know of what’s happening in the business and marketing world today! Here are some relevant news, trends, and updates you may want to know about:

• TikTok recently introduced a useful feature for Creators called TikTok Studio, which offers tools to create, edit, and manage your content.
  
  
• Ray-Ban: This is not the newest news, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s cool: Meta collaborated with Ray-Ban and created Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. They come with a camera, audio, and controls.
  
  
• Meta: The Meta AI research team has released new AI Research models. The models have features like processing and generating text and images and recognizing AI-generated speech. Learn more here.
  
  
• Instagram hopes to protect and promote original content. To do so, IG will start replacing reposted content with the original and forcing the reposting accounts to change how they approach and create content (they will need to add their own spin and insights to content for it not to be flagged, removed, or replaced).
  
  
• The Viral Squishmallow: Target’s lemon cow Squishmallow has TikTokers going crazy – it’s going viral as we speak! Mentioning viral keywords in your content can boost your organic exposure, increase traffic flow, and boost your site’s authority in the search engines. Jump on the trend!
  
  

Now, back to the main subject…

Pro Tips For Your Marketing Process: 

• Have a Clear Vision: Your product or service should align with your values and what you want to be known for. Marketing anything requires strategy, often multiple ones, and not everything will pan out the way you want it to in the beginning.
  
  You will encounter setbacks and trial-and-error moments, but that shouldn’t discourage you from pivoting and trying again. Having a clear idea of what you want to achieve will help you determine what needs to change and what needs to stay the same throughout your journey.
  
  
• Always Consider Your TA: Your target audience (TA) depends on your product (unless you deliberately create a product to attract a specific audience). But what depends on your TA?
  
  Your target audience will determine what social media platforms you will use to push content for your product or service, as well as what kind of content you create – short or long-form videos, informational emails or posts, radio ads, billboards, old-school postcards via the good ol’ snail mail, etc.
  
  Your target audience also determines the color scheme, style, personalization of your website, and how you deliver your products or services. For example, you can’t get too techy with older folks, but you may want to stay on the cutting edge for the younger crowds.
  
  
• Consistency Drives Results: Making one post or short video once in a while will most likely not give you the desired results, if any results at all. Staying consistent with posting, creating, and engaging is important if your goals are to increase brand awareness, drive organic traffic, improve engagement, and, ultimately, get more sales. 
  
  Marketing is often about building and maintaining momentum.
  
  
• Sales Happen Between The Lines: This bullet continues the previous one. Exposure is power – the bigger your exposure, the more eyes are on your product or service; the more you post, the more people will see your posts.
  
  The more people see your content, the more your product engraves itself into their memory, and before you (or they) know it, they are purchasing a little scarf from your e-commerce store, signing up for a free trial of your app, or buying your crash course on affiliate marketing.
  
  In many cases, you don’t even have to “close” anyone; you simply provide a desired thing, attract people into your marketing funnel, help them make a purchase decision, and provide a safe place for them to make a purchase.
  
  
• Sign Up for Vavoza Insider: Our team at Vavoza is on a mission to provide you with the latest, most applicable, and useful information on how to fast-forward your marketing journey!
  
  We offer actionable tips, insights, and step-by-step instructions on how to engage with your audience, how to create content, and which platforms you can use to grow your business.
  
  So, if you would like to learn faster, without combing the web yourself, sign up here – we do all the research for you, and all you have to do is read our newsletter once a week!
  
  

Closing Remarks

So, to recap, selling doesn’t exist without marketing because to sell, there needs to be a demand for whatever you are selling, and marketing provides exactly that – a demand!

Having a clear vision, knowing your target audience, and staying consistent are some of the key factors of being a successful marketer.

Our goal at Vavoza is to provide a space where you can find and learn modern marketing strategies, tactics, and concepts in one place. If you have not signed up for our weekly newsletter yet, you should subscribe here ‘cause you’re missing out!