Marketing versus Sales

•  
  juniorbird05/11/07 Report as spam
  1

  Been there done that

  I missed the last entry but just jumped in in time for this one. In my last job, I did marketing and was actually judged in terms of the qualified leads I created. At first this was weird, but I quickly grew to love it, because I suddenly had a measure of effectiveness that was quick.
  
  That said, the skillset I used was completely different than that used by the sales team. I'm not sure that having someone only versed in marketing or in sales overseeing everyone would be effective. It's a whole pipeline, as you say -- put someone in charge who can understand the way the whole thing works.

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  cybercamp05/14/07 Report as spam
  2

  Marketing VS Sales

  I have to agree with most of what Geof has to say in his article related to the Marketing "function". What he is pointing out is, on the whole, very true and that is that marketing is many times not in sync with the overall sales process or they are not "measured" in a way that ensures they are value added to the organization. I see that quite a few of the Marketing folks got upset with his premise...but I have worked in many Fortune 500 firms and even smaller companies, that measure the Sales team every which way possible but almost never say a peep about Marketing team effectiveness (although I am sure there are some exceptions). And since good marketing should lead to good sales, it seems ludicrous that marketing is not held accountable more for cost of sales.
  
  It seems at times that Marketing is looked upon as "doing their job" if they put out enough brochures, or press releases, etc. and it is always the sales team that falls flat on their butt if all this great marketing effort is not turned into sales. Lowering the cost of sales would be a great way to "measure" marketing effort not to mention % of qualified sales leads that = paying customers. And how about bookings to billings ratio from month to month; it would seem if that starts to go in the wrong direction, it could be that your Marketing "strategy" may need to be re-visited.
  
  So really we need to make sure that Marketing and Sales are a team becuase they are all part of a continuous process which has the ouput of qualified, good margin producing, customers. So if you think of it in this way; there is really no difference between Sales and Marketing...one prospects and starts to dig the hole and the other extracts the gold! You just need to avoid prospecting where there ain't no gold....later.

•  
  schmutz@...05/15/07 Report as spam
  3

  .. eeerrhh

  I think you've stated some good points.
  
  The logic way: First Marketing, then Sales. Like first chicken, then egg (eerrhh). There's no sales approach without marketing preparation. Remember guys, the 5 P's (or more) of Marketing ... you sales guys and the communication geeks are both under the mighty force of "P" for Promotion. You guys need to work together.
  
  Before selling or creating any sales tools, even a simple SWOT analysis can help you sophisticating and improving your cross-medial weapons ... it's just important to ask yourselves:
  What do I need to focus on? What marketing instrument fits best?
  
  And just wanted to add, that for medium sized and smaller companies it's quite difficult to find out how strong their brand is, without paying a big sum to a market research company.
  Brand & Image strategic marketing campaigns will pay back on mid-term basis. It's hard to accept this, but it the truth. It's not like sales, where you easily can check sales statistics.

•  
  mcontois@...05/15/07 Report as spam
  4

  Marketing not Understood

  Marketing is not sales. Sales is a function of marketing.
  Marketing needs to have control over the product, the price, the promotion, and the place (distribution). There is a big to do in marketing about ROI. There are ways to measure campaigns. There is also something called test marketing where you try out a campaign on a select group and get their reactions. You note any inconsistencies. Marketing is an ongoing task. It takes years to work but eventually (target date) it should no longer be necessary. Marketing costs should go down significantly once it's job has been done. The objective is to have the right product at the right price at the right place for the right customer. But of course the competition is usually right there causing marketing to still be needed as the market changes. It's not as simple as sales. What is being talked about here is that marketing may become complacent and passion is seriously lacking. Marketing needs to be more concerned with numbers and they should be. It should be about reducing the cost of sales but that's more down the road because marketing has a long term focus.

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  mcdanjoe05/15/07 Report as spam
  5

  Marketing versus Sales

  Functional thinking (marketing vs sales) and functional organization of these elements limits an organization's ability to effectively deliver product solutions to the market. Marketing & Sales are part of the same "process" to meet customer requirements; to separate them or to elevate one over the other is a misunderstanding of their proper roles of revenue generation..

•  
  mcontois@...05/15/07 Report as spam
  6

  Functional thinking?

  Sales function is to bring in business. Marketing's function is to give sales the tools it needs to be able to bring in the business. Marketing's job is to understand the company, the competition, and its customers in the market it is targeting. It then directs sales so it knows what it needs to know in order to close the deal.
  Salespeople have got to be building relationships with customers. That's the key to success. Marketing has a much broader role with the customers, understanding the majority or trying to. Salespeople can only deal with a small segment of it. Salespeople should be keeping a spreadsheet and segmenting its prospects, leads, and customers as they move through the buying stages. Not every lead or prospect deserves a sales call. But a lot of them deserve a quick phone call. No function in an organization works in isolation. It should be a team but we all have different roles to play. We should all be helping each other. If sales has information that would be helpful to marketing then they should let them know and vice versa. In the end it is about wealth creation but it's a journey too. Marketing is moving towards measuring their activities. It should absolutely be a priority. Where I work now, we have had 0 response to our direct marketing campaigns. It is accepted. I'm working on changing it but one problem is our limited budget so I'm thinking we need to be very selective in who we target and what we information provide to them. Marketing folks care about the customer. That's what we are paid to do or so I feel. We want the customer to have the information they need and the product that they want but we have to work with the engineering and finance departments. The problem in most organizations is that marketing is in charge of promotion and they are not given enough information. That is what I feel anyway. I'm not an expert but that's the environment I work in. I don't have enough information but I'm trying. I also don't have any control. I can make suggestions and search for information. Maybe I am the exception? I hope not!

•  
  mcontois@...05/15/07 Report as spam
  7

  Marketing is not Sales

  Lead generation is still sales to me. That's a sales thing.
  When I was still in undergrad, I spoke with a guy who has a PhD and he was telling me that a lot of people in business didn't understand marketing. He believed marketing and sales should be separate.
  Would you combine the finance and accounting departments?
  Would you combine engineering and finance?
  Would you combine management and finance?
  Different departments need to communicate and share information with each other but each department does not need to know every detail or aspect of each other's role. You can be dragged down with too much information.
  Marketing is much misunderstood and maligned.
  Again real marketing is about keeping on top of the customers that make up a target market and the industry. They should be the first ones to notice trends and be able to make recommendations of new products that customers want. They should present them to management, finance, accounting, and sales. If the marketing plan is not working then it needs to be changed.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine05/22/07 Report as spam
  8

  Exactly the problem...

  Again real marketing is about keeping on top of the customers that make up a target market and the industry.
  
  Unfortunately, many marketing "professionals" wouldn't know a customer if he came up and bit them. Because they don't talk to customers, or simply talk to focus groups (a highly artificial situation) or simply look at market research (which is often based upon highly suspect premises), they don't know what customers want or need. Furthermore, their "target market" are often fictional because they lack the sales experience to understand where the opportunities really lie.
  
  They should be the first ones to notice trends and be able to make recommendations of new products that customers want.
  
  Sorry, but marketing almost never knows what products customers want because their knowledge is entirely theoretical. In my experience, the engineering group is more aware of product and industry trends than the marketing group. Unfortunately, because engineers will build things that they think are "neat" (but no customer would buy) there is a definite need to filter out what's techno-religion and what's actually salable. That's a legitimate function, but most marketing groups don't do that. Instead, they make up goofy products that can't be built and then complain when engineering doesn't deliver them on time.
  
  They should present them to management, finance, accounting, and sales.
  
  Argh!!! That's the problem. Marketing and their freakin' slides. In most cases, all that presentation activity consists of marketing 1) finding a parade and getting out in front of it or 2) trying to take credit for other people's work.
  
  If the marketing plan is not working then it needs to be changed.
  
  Once again, the "plan" is not important. What is important is: what is marketing contributing to the bottom line? Are they just running around giving presentations, making goofy brochures and claiming that they're "driving sales" or are they actually making it easier to sell and reducing the cost of sales? If they aren't doing either of those things, and what they ARE doing can't be measured quantitatively, then they're essentially parasites.
  
  The way you've defined marketing, there's no way to measure them. Every other group in the company (especially sales) is being measured quantitatively. Marketing must be measured on reducing cost of sales because that's the only function that's actually valuable to the company. Note that, under that rubric, a marketing group could help define a better product that would be easier to sell. But their contribution would be measurable and they'd be held to account if the product didn't sell as expected.

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  K2Colo05/15/07 Report as spam
  9

  A bit over the top, but the point remains true

  Readership through controversy, this is a fun thread.
  
  The authors point, though overstated is spot on. However the measurement he cries for is already rapidly being put into place at many companies. Additionally tools that nurture and grade "contacts" before submitting them to the sales team are rapidly being adopted as well.
  
  I work at a midsize company on the smaller side of the spectrum and can tell you which campaign delivered which response, where all responses are in the sales cycle by campaign, cost per lead, cost per sale, and so on, all by campaign or even search phrase. My point is simple, the tide has already begun to turn, and the author is a bit late and cynical making his point.

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  mvincenten@...05/23/07 Report as spam
  10

  Funnel versus filter

  The funnel shape is true but it is more of a filter than a funnel. Marketing should assist the marketplace and the sales department to determine who is the target for the product to "narrow down the universe" to those who would benefit from the B2B solution. It is then the sales rep's job to prospect through the suspects defined by marketing and narrow it down to the few who have money, authority, and a true business need and personal win for the offering. Not everyone who wants the product can afford it, have the authority to obtain it, or would even benefit from it (resulting in a positive long term relationship).

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  Scout1234905/29/07 Report as spam
  11

  Blur

  Measurable results. Both entities have them or should have them. The differentiators are WHAT results are measured and HOW and perhaps WHEN in the funnel or pipe that measurement takes place. As companies strive to quantify activities performed by the various groups, many experiemnets are going on to rein in costs by attach most activities to the sale. To me, the jury is still out as to whether all of these experiements will work. In the interim, there seems to be a lot of Blur going on here. My question is - does the blurring of roles really benefit top and bottom line growth?

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  rboggs07/17/07 Report as spam
  12

  Sales Reps or Order Takers

  In a situation where marketing creates a sales pipe rather than a sales funnel, you no longer have sales reps--you have order takers. Why should order takers earn such high commissions when you could hire an order taker (a.k.a cashier) from the local wal-mart and pay them minimum wage.

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  phil.mostert@...07/17/07 Report as spam
  13

  Marketing vs Sales

  This article is bang on! One of the best I've ever read!

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  SteveRider07/18/07 Report as spam
  14

  Marketing v. Sales

  I agree with your demand generation theories and the relationship of cost of sales to funnel management, however you're simplifying the role of marketing within an organization. Demand generation, or promotion, is not the only function that Marketing provides, rather it should be the planning and execution of the entire marketing mix. I believe Drucker said the difference between sales and marketing is that Sales first obligation is to the company and Marketing's first obligation is to the customer. Said another way, Sales has to make the number by whatever means possible. Marketing has to ensure it has identified and created what customers want.

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  khaled.samy@...07/22/07 Report as spam
  15

  Marketing comes first then Sales

  I was discussing with our Sales Director who beleives that sales is everything in the company, I think so too however this is because marketing is absent, marketing team focus on advertizing and branding.
  
  For me Marketing comes first, marketing team does the following
  1- Market research
  2- Market segmentation
  3- Competitive analysis
  4- Measure customer segmentations and product attractiveness
  5- Develop marketing pla
  6- Pricing strategy and tactics
  7- Customer communication
  8- conduct sales review
  9- advertizing
  10- Brand management
  
  however sales
  1- sales calls and visits
  2- customer relationship
  3- develop sales plan to implement the marketing plan
  4- feedback customer needs and ideas
  develop key account plans
  
  I beleieve that all departments within an organization are responsible of customer satisfaction including marketing and sales.
  
  Personally believe that sales team is one of the marketing arms to market company products such as tele-sales, TV ads, SMS and internet such as online payment all are marketing tools and all drive revenue.
  
  Khaled Samy

•  
  marybaum@...01/04/08 Report as spam
  16

  Marketing's role

  There's a famous Ad Age ad that shows an executive in a chair, chomping on
  a cigar.
  
  He says (roughly):
  
  "I don't know who you are, where you're from, what your company does or
  anything about your products. What were you going to sell me?"
  
  The point is that marketing can open a lot of doors, and awareness and
  market share are in fact quantifiable goals that affect sales. In consumer
  packaged goods, a percentage point of market share can equal millions of
  dollars in sales. And awareness can mean the difference between getting in to
  see a qualified prospect for your product and having the door slammed in
  your face.
  
  There are folks who say that the only marketing that counts is direct
  marketing or sales promotion, and Lands' End is clear evidence that you can
  build a brand on the strength of just DM and a highly effective web presence.
  (ALthough Lands' End did run a few magazine ads in the pre-web days that
  encouraged readers to call for the catalogue.)
  
  The B2B analogy would be Dell.
  
  It's certainly easy to measure direct marketing and sales promotion
  campaigns' effect on sales because we know what to measure. They do
  generate the qualified leads you're looking for.
  
  In advertising and public relations, the goals are awareness and credibility.
  Those are longer-term builders of brand value.
  
  But if they mean that the guy with the cigar (or the woman who took his place
  in 1995) will take a meeting after two phone calls instead of 27, that does
  reduce the cost of sales.
  
  And if the long-running online video campaign means that a prospect will
  take your call on the first try because he likes those videos and knows your
  brand, that pushes down the cost of sales too. But you won't know it until
  you get a tip from your best friend on the golf course and try to take in that
  stupid brochure, which will sit in the prospect's files until s/he needs to ask
  you a question about something or find something on your web site (another
  useless expense?)
  
  Now, if your company puts in systems to track those responses back to the
  original campaign, it's possible that the time lag will keep them from getting
  credited back properly. (What purchasing VP is going to admit s/he called you
  because your marketing department runs funny videos?)
  
  Yet we know that everyone -- every single person on the planet -- makes
  purchasing decisions for emotional reasons. (How else do we explain the
  trashing of the Cingular brand for AT&T? It's a phenomenally bad business
  decision -- clearly it met a deep emotional need of one or more senior
  executives in San Antonio. And, I'm here to tell you that they're in San
  Antonio at least partly because of an earlier emotional decision --
  involving a country club.)
  
  Now, back to emotions in the sales process. Prospects build the original list
  of companies to choose from because they like the brand personalities of the
  companies, first. Then they go back and make sure the products meet the
  requirements.
  
  When they make the final decision to buy from you, the sales pro, it's because
  they like working with you. Otherwise, why do you have a T&E budget?
  Sometimes you get the business -- or lose it -- because their CEO likes
  hanging out with your CEO, or because someone at the C-level in their organization has a close friend or a relative competing for the business.
  
  The fact that your (or the competition's) solution meets the requirements,
  even in a way that makes your prospect's life a lot easier and helps him/her
  do a lot better job, is a given and thus a secondary consideration.
  
  The only time that scenario doesn't hold is if your product is so far above the
  competition that it's an absolute game-changer, in which case the buyer's
  emotions still come into play. Because the buyer then has to be willing to
  take the risk that the game-changing, head-and-shoulders-above-all
  solution might have unforeseen problems, or not work at all. So s/he has to
  have the self-image of a maverick, or the organizational power to push a
  potentially unpopular decision through a potentially resistant organization.
  
  As a sales pro, I'm sure you're aware of all of this. But how much time do you
  have to do all the work at every step of that process, multiplied by all the
  prospects in that pipeline, developing your own materials at a level that
  makes you competitive with the companies that have the support of
  multimillion-dollar marketing budgets?
  
  So I would think you'd find your life much easier if marketing can, first, get
  you on the list of companies that a prospect is going to be aware of that
  meet the requirements and, better yet, do it in a way that helps the prospect
  solve a real problem in his/her job and make him/her look like a star.
  
  And even easier if marketing can create an appealing personality for your
  solution's brand, exactly as if you were selling a consumer product, so the
  prospect can put you on that short list of brands s/he likes.
  
  Then, armed with materials that reinforce that brand personality and your
  own magnetic personality -- plus the support of your folks in operations who
  can deliver on the brand promise, i.e., make sure your solution solves the
  business problems that you and the marketing efforts say it can solve, so you
  don't turn into a liar -- you can go in and be the sales pro the prospect and
  his/her management likes best.
  
  But as you can see, it can take a while to embed an entire program of brand
  awareness into a target audience ? especially one that really plants the
  impression that your brand has a particular personality, so that you can call a
  prospect and have him/her completely receptive to your offering from the
  beginning.
  
  It takes a lot of exposure as well as a compelling message. And while lead
  generation can be a huge part of it, it also takes some advertising and a good
  bit of public relations -- including a blog like this one.
  
  Now, am I really disputing the idea that we measure these programs by their
  impact on overall sales and margins? Actually, no.
  
  But I am suggesting that it's inappropriate to tie advertising, brand-building
  and PR to 90-day benchmarks. I think the time frame needs to suit the
  activity. A direct-marketing promotion in three media that aims to clear out
  excess inventory at the end of a season might only have a 45-day
  benchmark. But an online community needs a year or more to get
  established. A new car in this country takes three to five years to come to
  market. And Toyota's long-range business plans project for a century.

•  
  marybaum@...01/04/08 Report as spam
  17

  Ew- too much text on that last comment. This one's easier.

  There's a famous Ad Age ad that shows an executive in a chair, chomping on
  a cigar.
  

  
  He says (roughly): "I don't know who you are, where you're from, what your
  company does or anything about your products. What were you going to sell
  me?"

  
  

  The point is that marketing can open a lot of doors, and awareness and
  market share are in fact quantifiable goals that affect sales. In consumer
  packaged goods, a percentage point of market share can equal millions of
  dollars in sales.

  
  

  And awareness can mean the difference between getting in to see a
  qualified prospect for your product and having the door slammed in your face.
  There are folks who say that the only marketing that counts is direct
  marketing or sales promotion, and Lands' End is clear evidence that you can
  build a brand on the strength of just DM and a highly effective web presence.
  (ALthough Lands' End did run a few magazine ads in the pre-web days that
  encouraged readers to call for the catalogue.)

  
  

  The B2B analogy would be Dell.

  
  

  It's certainly easy to measure direct marketing and sales promotion
  campaigns' effect on sales because we know what to measure. They do
  generate the qualified leads you're looking for. In advertising and public
  relations, the goals are awareness and credibility. Those are longer-term
  builders of brand value.

  
  

  But if they mean that the guy with the cigar (or the woman who took his
  place in 1995) will take a meeting after two phone calls instead of 27, that
  does reduce the cost of sales. And if the long-running online video campaign
  means that a prospect will take your call on the first try because he likes
  those videos and knows your brand, that pushes down the cost of sales too.

  
  

  But you won't know it until you get a tip from your best friend on the
  golf course and try to take in that stupid brochure, which will sit in the
  prospect's files until s/he needs to ask you a question about something or
  find something on your web site (another useless expense?)

  
  

  Now, if your company puts in systems to track those responses back to
  the original campaign, it's possible that the time lag will keep them from
  getting credited back properly. (What purchasing VP is going to admit s/he
  called you because your marketing department runs funny videos?)

  
  

  Yet we know that everyone -- every single person on the planet --
  makes purchasing decisions for emotional reasons. (How else do we explain
  the trashing of the Cingular brand for AT&T? It's a phenomenally bad business
  decision -- clearly it met a deep emotional need of one or more senior
  executives in San Antonio. And, I'm here to tell you that they're in San
  Antonio at least partly because of an earlier emotional decision -- involving a
  country club.)

  
  

  Now, back to emotions in the sales process. Prospects build the original
  list of companies to choose from because they like the brand personalities of
  the companies, first. Then they go back and make sure the products meet the
  requirements.

  
  

  When they make the final decision to buy from you, the sales pro, it's
  because they like working with you. Otherwise, why do you have a T&E
  budget? Sometimes you get the business -- or lose it -- because their CEO
  likes hanging out with your CEO, or because someone at the C-level in their
  organization has a close friend or a relative competing for the business.

  
  

  The fact that your (or the competition's) solution meets the requirements,
  even in a way that makes your prospect's life a lot easier and helps him/her
  do a lot better job, is a given and thus a secondary consideration.

  
  

  The only time that scenario doesn't hold is if your product is so far above
  the competition that it's an absolute game-changer, in which case the buyer's
  emotions still come into play. Because the buyer then has to be willing to
  take the risk that the game-changing, head-and-shoulders-above-all
  solution might have unforeseen problems, or not work at all.

  
  

  So s/he has to have the self-image of a maverick, or the organizational
  power to push a potentially unpopular decision through a potentially resistant
  organization.

  
  

  As a sales pro, I'm sure you're aware of all of this. But how much time do
  you have to do all the work at every step of that process, multiplied by all the
  prospects in that pipeline, developing your own materials at a level that
  makes you competitive with the companies that have the support of
  multimillion-dollar marketing budgets?

  
  

  So I would think you'd find your life much easier if marketing can, first,
  get you on the list of companies that a prospect is going to be aware of that
  meet the requirements and, better yet, do it in a way that helps the prospect
  solve a real problem in his/her job and make him/her look like a star. And
  even easier if marketing can create an appealing personality for your
  solution's brand, exactly as if you were selling a consumer product, so the
  prospect can put you on that short list of brands s/he likes.

  
  

  Then, armed with materials that reinforce that brand personality and your
  own magnetic personality -- plus the support of your folks in operations who
  can deliver on the brand promise, i.e., make sure your solution solves the
  business problems that you and the marketing efforts say it can solve, so you
  don't turn into a liar -- you can go in and be the sales pro the prospect and
  his/her management likes best.

  
  

  But as you can see, it can take a while to embed an entire program of
  brand awareness into a target audience ? especially one that really plants the
  impression that your brand has a particular personality, so that you can call a
  prospect and have him/her completely receptive to your offering from the
  beginning.

  
  

  It takes a lot of exposure as well as a compelling message. And while
  lead generation can be a huge part of it, it also takes some advertising and a
  good bit of public relations -- including a blog like this one.

  
  

  Now, am I really disputing the idea that we measure these programs by
  their impact on overall sales and margins? Actually, no.

  
  

  But I am suggesting that it's inappropriate to tie advertising, brand-
  building and PR to 90-day benchmarks. I think the time frame needs to suit
  the activity.

  
  

  A direct-marketing promotion in three media that aims to clear out
  excess inventory at the end of a season might only have a 45-day
  benchmark. But an online community needs a year or more to get
  established. A new car in this country takes three to five years to come to
  market. And Toyota's long-range business plans project for a century.

•  
  ltodorova06/19/08 Report as spam
  18

  RE: Marketing versus Sales

  I work in Marketing and you're right! Sure Marketing should be measured by
  cost of sales and qualified lead quota. But, what's the tactical solution for
  marketing success?
  Here's what I propose. It's not that the websites, webinars, advertising and all
  other marketing activity doesn't work, the problem is in the MESSAGING.
  As you say in your post, "...most marketing "tools"...have no relevance
  whatsoever to actual customers." How about Marketing focuses on making
  customer-centric messages that turn the message "inside-out"?
  Corporate Visions (yes, I work there) has a Power Positioning workshop that
  helps Marketing do just that. We work with companies like Volvo Trucks, GE
  and ADP. And then we train Sales how to take that even further by teaching
  them how to emotionally connect to the buyer, using the new sales message.
  The irony is that usually it's Sales that brings our sales messaging solution to
  Marketing, and Marketing fights us all the way until they see the result.

•  
  phildobbie09/09/08 Report as spam
  19

  Sales is part of marketing

  When I went to school marketing was accountable for EBIT - so your marketing director should be accountable for margin and volume. Sales should really be part of the marketing function, along with product management. I think the issue in B2B is that the full function of marketing is often lost and most marketing departments are actually marketing communications departments.