Marketing Matters - A thorough Marketing and Business Development Blog

All medium to large companies have a separate department for Marketing and Sales. But Does sales come under marketing? Is marketing a big picture which starts from identifying the requirements to selling the solutions?

I can define marketing as, identifying and understanding the targeting customers requirements

sales as, selling solutions based on the customer needs.

Actually the answer is, Its the matter Type of Industry we are talking about. In Manufacturing / Machines industries there is no clear demarcation between mktg and sales. A person has to perform both simultaneously. This structure can differ for other industries.

In Software Industry, there is clear cut demarcation that essential function of the Marketing is finally “Lead Generation”. So if pre-sales includes any of the following functions such as proposal making, product presentation or lead generation, then it should be included as part of Marketing Department.

The four ‘Ps’ of marketing are product, place, price and promotion. Marketing is everything a company does to acquire customers and maintain a relationship with them. – thank you letters, playing golf with a prospective client, returning calls promptly and meeting with a past client for coffee can be thought of as marketing. The ultimate goal of marketing is to match a company’s products and services to the people who need and want them, thereby ensure profitability

In the B2B space Marketing must incorporate Sales aspects for being effective. Market success depends on a good alignment between Marketing and Sales. So there must be a person overseeing both functions on some level of the organization. CEO or COO levels however seem to me to high for this coordination. So a Marketing and Sales Department reporting to one of those C levels would be my recommendation.

From a functionality standpoint I believe there is value in separate entities. maybe even the old saying “two heads are better than one.”

Marketing’s job is to develop a position and message that drives people to engage the company by making them think/feel “I would be a fool to buy from anybody else, regardless of price!”

The sales department’s job is to handle that actual contact and interaction between the customer and the company.