Many people look at sales and marketing as basically the same thing. However, there is a big difference between sales and marketing, but they do need each other to work effectively. Today, let’s take a closer look at how marketing is truly different from sales.
I’ve mentioned previously that your exhibit is a marketing tool, not a sales tool. To effectively market your company you need to know what marketing truly is. Imagine you’re the new marketing manager. What is your job? Is it to increase sales? Not directly. If you look at marketing from its pure definition, your job description would be similar to the following points:
- Establish your company’s competitive position
- Identify your ideal customer
- Locate potential markets
- Generates quality sales leads
- Develops effective selling tools
- Analyze competitor’s business strategies and tactics
- Define, prioritize, and promote your products or services
- Organize and transfer customer information to other departments
A full time marketing manager would need to stay on top of new product rollouts, organization and maintenance of customer contact Information, market research, pricing analysis, public relations, trade shows, marketing communications, media selection, internal communications, and, most importantly, your corporate vision and strategy.
Marketing is a business philosophy. You must set the tone and position your company as the leader in your industry. You must find your niche and exploit it, an important piece to customer retention. Social media has also become a major component of marketing. Strategies include videos, testimonies, groups, blogs, website hierarchy, and many technology savvy campaign outlets.
In summary, marketing is a strategic part of a company’s success. It is the foundation that describes and promotes your company and therefore is the catalyst for sales. A strong emphasis on a marketing strategy will make the sales process much more effective. Learn the keys to marketing and you will find the sales you need to grow.
Some tips for getting started:
- Create a corporate vision, philosophy and identity. If you don’t know who you are how can you tell others about you? At Exhibit Edge our corporate identity is our “why” – our mission statement. “We care, serve and challenge the ordinary to maximize our customer’s vision and success.”
- Make sure that you train your sales and marketing professionals to talk the same language so that your message is consistent.
- Understand and research your ideal client, and then promote to them. Once they find you, a potential client will do their research to make sure you are a good fit. Having more information out there for them to see will be an important element for closing sales (this is where social media will play an important part of your strategy). Give your salespeople the tools they need so marketing and sales can operate together for a common goal – to increase revenue.