Sales V/s Marketing

Sales V/s Marketing

                            In any business, Sales and Marketing play a pivotal role. Sales and Marketing functions are backbone of any business organization. Success and failure of business is dependent on the efficiency of Sales and Marketing team. Question is whether sales and marketing is same of there is a difference in these two? Answer is ‘No’ Sales and Marketing is not same and both these terms cannot be used interchangeability.

What is Marketing?

                            Marketing is a broad concept. In simple words, it means the process through which the goods and services move from the producer to the ultimate user of the products. Philip Kotler, the father of Marketing says Marketing is a social process by which a need or want is created, offered and exchanged via products (goods, services or an idea)
Marketing is the systematic planning and implementation so that the buyers and sellers come together and a market is created.

Major components of Marketing are as below:

Identifying Market need and want:  Marketing starts with identification of need and want of the customer. The basic need of human being is Food, Shelter, water, safety, esteem etc. , wants are something we would like to have, these are not necessary for survival of human being.

Difference between Need and Want :

	Need	Want
Definition	Bare minimum Things that are required to survive and live	Things excluding the one counted as needs,  it includes the things which one desires to possess.
Key Term	Necessity	Desire
For Life	Essential	Not Essential
Common Examples	Food, Shelter, water	Buying Branded Clothes, Eating in High End restaurants.
Situational Examples	A person is thirsty and needs to drink water	A person is feeling thirsty and needs to drink Coke.

Designing Product or services as per market need & want:

                       Once the need and want of the customer are identified, next step is to design a product or services that meet or exceed the expectations of the buyers. E-commerce companies identified that customers want to buy products through online channel from comfort of their home and companies like Amazon and Flipkart, grabbed this idea and now generating business worth billions.

Pricing 

Price is the amount of money that your customers have to pay in exchange for your product or service. There are two types of pricing Strategy:

Cost Plus:

              Cost Plus is taking the production cost and adding a certain profit percentage. The resulting amount will be the product’s price. You need to consider variable and fixed production costs for this pricing method.

Value Based

    Instead of using the production cost as your basis, you consider the customer’s perception of the product’s value. The perception of the buyer is dependent on the product’s quality, the company’s reputation, and healthfulness, aside from the cost factors. Apple sales its products on the value based pricing

Advertisement:

         Advertisement is also part of Marketing. Success or failure of the product is dependent on the advertising campaign, associated with the product. Sometimes wrong advertisement may lead to product failure. One of the examples of product failure because of wrong advertisement/positioning is Tata Motor’s Nano Car. The car was positioned as world’s “Cheapest Car “, after initial hype, potential customers , considered this car  as “ Low quality car” and “ Poor’s car”. Nobody wanted to be associated with the product which lowers their self- esteem and sales of the car plummeted gradually and now production of this car is completely stopped.

Finding the Target Customers:

            

                One of the most important thing that is to be taken care is finding the target which are aimed by the companies to place the product. Targeted segment can be Male/Female, Children/Youth/Aged, Urban/Rural, High Income/Middle Income/Low Income, Masses/Niche. Marketing efforts would be dependent on the targeted segment.

Distribution Channel:

                      A distribution channel is the route through which goods or services move from the company to the customer.  Wholesalers, Distributors, Agents, Retailers are the traditional distribution channels, however in recent times online delivery has emerged as one of the channels of distribution.

Customer Satisfaction:

              Customer satisfaction measures how your product, service, and overall experience either falls short, meets, or exceeds customer expectations.

Product or service does not meet customer's expectations	Customer's Dis-Satisfaction
Product or service meets customer's expectations	Customer's Satisfaction
Product or service exceeds  customer's expectations	Customer's delight

Selling:

                                  

      Sales is part of Marketing.Selling is simply the movement of the goods or services from the seller to buyer. Selling is a part of marketing, and therefore is a narrow concept.It is the main part of marketing but not the whole of it. Every business comes into existence to make some profit and yes selling plays a very vital role but marketing concentratres on the customer demands and needs which helps in increasing sales in the long run. 

Sr. No.	Marketing	Sales
1	Marketing is about customer satisfaction. It starts with customer needs and demand and ends with customer satisfaction. It is a customer oriented approach	Sales, on the other hand, is about selling what the company produces. It doesn’t care about the need of the customer but only about the profits.
2	Marketing is about providing quality products and consumer satisfaction.	Selling is about generating profits by maximising sales and is a money orient ed approach
3	In marketing, emphasis is given on the wants of the consumer	Whereas in selling, emphasis is on the company’s products.
4	Marketing is different from selling because here the company first determines customers’ needs and wants and then decides how to deliver a product to satisfy these wants.	In case of selling, emphasis is on the sales of whatever product available.
5	In marketing the emphasis is on innovation in existing technology and providing better value to the customer by adopting a superior technology	In Selling focus is on staying with existing technology and reducing costs.
6	Marketing views the customer as the very purpose of the business	Selling views customer as a last link in business.
7	Planning in marketing is long-term-oriented in today’s products and in terms of new products, tomorrow’s markets and future growth.	Planning in selling is short-term-oriented in terms of today’s products and markets.
8	Marketing follows customer oriented approach	Selling uses production oriented approach.
9	In Marketing,Customer determines price and price determines cost of product.	In selling, cost determines price.
10	Marketing makes use of long-term strategies to get sales – examples, Advertisement, value-added service, customer education, After Sales Service etc.	Selling makes use of short-term tactics to get sales – examples are free gifts, discounts, rebates, etc.
11	Marketing is an indirect activity of business generation	Sales is a direct activity of business generation
12	Markeeting shows how to reach to the customers and build long lasting relationship.	Selling is the ultimate result of marketing
13	Marketing is pull strategy	Selling is Push strategy

Management Mantra : In business, we need to understand different terms like Need, Want, Marketing, Selling, Customer Satisfaction etc. to grow the business in efficient manner.

Nitesh Kataria is Writer, Motivational Speaker, Blog Writer and Marketing Professional based in Pune and can be reached at 9822912811 or niteshk3@yahoo.com