Many entrepreneurs, who are starting out to build a business online, are misdirected in their belief what marketing really is. They see all the Internet marketers promoting and selling products and services online and therefore think it’s just that: Promoting and selling. But it isn’t. Marketing is not what you think it is.

Marketing is bringing the market to desire your product and not a collection of tactics to do so.

Common beliefs are, that marketing and advertising or selling are the same. But there are differences. Advertising is just a part of Marketing and sales are the result of good marketing.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MARKETING AND ADVERTISING

Marketing and Advertising, although they sound similar in reality they are not. Advertising is only a part of the bigger game called Marketing.

• Marketing encompasses complete conceptualization of a brand right from research to designing to advertising to sale.
• Advertising, on the other hand is a component of the marketing process which is nothing but conveying the message through variety of mediums to promote the product.

Advertising

Advertising is one of the most important component of a marketing strategy and also the most expensive. Advertising constitutes sending the message across the public about your company, product or services. It also constitutes behind the scenes work like the process involving formation of various strategies and coming up with a right one to target the viewers.

The strategy consists of planning things like placing ads, deciding what media to use, what time, frequency etc. The advertisements are generally placed via mediums like television, snail mail, newspapers, internet, emails, radio, magazines, mobile messaging, flyers, billboards etc. The most popular one is of course television although advertising on the internet is becoming increasingly popular too.

Marketing

The Easiest way to differentiate advertising from marketing is to consider marketing as a cake and if you cut the cake, advertising is one of the pieces of that cake. The other pieces of the cake are market research of the product, product designing, media planning, PR, product pricing, customer satisfaction, customer support, sales and many more. All these components or pieces of the cake should work independently but collectively in achieving the bigger goal i.e. sell the product and build the company’s reputation on the market.

Marketing is a marathon process involving many tasks that involve hours, sometimes days of research. The research part of marketing takes the longest duration as it involves thoroughly understanding the behavior of people towards a product. Designing the product and developing advertising strategy is also a time consuming process. Marketing can also be perceived as a medium between consumers and the company.

Don’t get confused

But many entrepreneurs often make the mistake of confusing advertising with marketing. They try to ape big companies like Coke and Pepsi in advertising but they simply ignore the work that goes behind that. The classical example of this is, take the case of logo for instance. Many business owners are so hysterical about the logo of their company in their advertisements, that they think that it will simply bring in the sales. But what makes a logo work is nothing other than the reputation of the company and the logo must have a feeling to it and should truly reflect the company’s values.

You should also remember that these companies spend fortunes on advertising which a new start up business can’t. Rather than spending unnecessary money on branding your product one should invest money and time in communicating to the consumers that they can address their expectations. After building reputation and growing to a big size company you can think of these lavish ideas. Educating the consumers also helps as it will give them an understanding that you know what you do and are best at doing just that.

Smart marketers are aggressive in the approach rather than passive. They provoke reader’s minds by prompting them to do something rather than just making them knowledgeable of the product. Smart marketers also bring home the names, addresses and contact numbers of people who are really interested in hiring your company by employing aggressive marketing. Thus having a good marketing campaign speaks a lot about the company and their products and advertising gives that finishing touch to the hard work done by the marketing people in selling a product.

MARKETING AND SALES: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Marketing and sales are one of the most important components of a business’s survival in the market. While both are dependent on each other many people confuse marketing with sales and vice-versa which is a big mistake.

• Marketing involves designing a product according to the needs of the market and customers, promoting the product through advertising etc. and setting up a competitive price for the product. Marketing is a platform which drives sales.
• While on the other hand the sales process is what you do to successfully sell a product and fetch a contract.

Sales and marketing together is a part of selling and one cannot do without the other. They can also be called activities. The success of a business is critical to the success of these two important activities.

Marketing is the backbone of a company’s future and launching pad for the sales. While the marketing process encompasses the design of the product, advertising etc. the sales process is the execution of all the efforts which involves direct interaction with client either by in-person meetings, cold calls or by networking. But there is always an ongoing rivalry between the two one claiming dominancy over other.

The marketing people say they have an upper hand because it is them who designs the product, lays down the strategy and also develops the essential tools for sales. They say sales are the outcome of marketing and thus should follow its directions. The sales people might not agree with this view and may take the complete opposite in their opinion. They think that it is the sales people who actually sells a product and bring money to the business.

But many experts believe that marketing should play a pivotal role among the two. A successful marketing campaign makes sales easy and makes people believe that it is actually the sales people who are the dominant leaders. The most important role of a marketing department is to create opportunities for the sales department. Marketing drives sales and sales drives companies’ success. Marketing is like a life support for sales, one who is constantly backing up the sales department and enabling them to successfully deliver the end product. There shouldn’t be a race to gain supremacy over another department but a race to win the market and customers working together.

Many businesses combine sales and marketing together but in reality they have different targets:

• The sales department is interested in fulfilling the requirements of what the customer asked for
• The marketing department is actually busy studying what the market demands.

The goal of the marketing department is to foresee how the market will shape up in the future. They should envision their product catering to the needs of the market for next few years and be ready to make design changes in their product accordingly.

It is very important that a company integrates their sales and marketing department in a well fashioned manner. It is the correct integration of these two important entities that fuels the growth of a company. Each department has its own role and should go hand in hand in selling the product of the company and should be the foremost important criteria.