Sales and marketing are frequently assumed to be interchangeable terms. In actual fact, they are each very distinctive processes, although ultimately they have the same goal.

Marketing is a fairly passive way to develop your business; by identifying your target market and making your marketing material appealing to them you are reliant on these materials to generate interest and thereby contact from interested parties.

Sales are more assertive or interactive and rely upon effective questioning to find the needs of the buyer before offering the best solution and generating the interest in the offering.

They work best when utilised together! – Jules White

‘Sales’ means successfully selling one’s goods or services to a customer in return for remuneration, effectively sealing a formal deal between vendor and buyer. A sale, however, is highly likely to have been only the end point of an effective marketing process.

Good marketing is crucial to successful sales. It is by means of effective marketing that a business or service provider communicates the value of their goods or services to prospective customers.

Sales and Marketing

Work best when implemented together. Without both sides of the coin the business development may fail! You can release the best marketing campaign, highly targeted, but the results can still be marred if you do not have a professional sales person handling the incoming enquiries. Alternatively the sales process can be a very steep incline if you have no marketing to raise awareness of the offering, or effectively communicated literature. Sales and marketing go hand in hand. Each needs the other to succeed!

Marketing incorporates a set of principles known as the 4 P’s – Pricing, Promotion, Positioning and Product. Pricing must be competitive; promotion should be effective, well structured and attractive. Effective positioning comes from knowing what one’s target market is, in terms of demographics, economic conditions and other related factors, and of course a quality product that effectively fills a need in its market area is crucial.

It is vital for sales teams to make use of varied marketing techniques in order to achieve their ultimate goal. These include advertising, public relations, publicity and sales promotions.

A key aspect of modern marketing is the use of ‘new’ media, such as the business’s own website, social networking sites and blogs, to draw potential customers to a company’s products and services. These channels also allow customers to interact directly with the firm, and they are vital tools for building and maintaining a successful brand.

The use of sales and marketing to grow a business traditionally fall into two strategies – the ‘Pull’ and the ‘Push’. With the ‘Pull’ method, marketing techniques are used to attract the greatest number of potential customers ‘through the doors’ and into direct contact. This method enables sales staff to establish and maintain an exemplary level of customer service.

The ‘Pull’ method works best for consumer goods and straightforward services, with marketing resources deployed on advertising and sales promotions.

Alternatively, the ‘Push’ strategy involves using marketing and sales resources to uncover new potential sales leads and push them into the sales channel. This method is mostly employed when a business is supplying highly technical and/or high cost products and services, especially in a business-to-business sales environment.

In this case, marketing resources are best directed towards more sophisticated efforts to educate potential customers as to the nature and value of the products on offer. As well as maintaining customer service, marketing and sales personnel also take a more proactive outbound strategy in approaching potential buyers.

In either case, the integration of sales and marketing strategies is a crucial boon for any business. This ensures that both aspects combined are made greater than the sum of their parts.

Marketing resources must be directed to providing information and materials relevant to the process of generating sales opportunities. Sales teams in turn benefit from a well-developed and coherent message and overall strategy provided by the business’s marketing efforts.

Fortunately, The Last Hurdle can help establish just this kind of integrated sales and marketing approach for your company. We can implement traditional sales and marketing methods to reach your target market, engage with them and close the sale.  We promote your business’s products and services to exactly the kind of target audience you need, to facilitate an increase in sales.

Whatever your line of work and target customer base, you can be confident that The Last Hurdle™ will help create exactly the kind of integrated sales and marketing strategy you need. So why not contact us to discuss what we can do to boost your business?