What’s the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?

Sales and marketing teams have the same goal of getting a customer to purchase a product or service, but their roles differ in terms of scope, tactics, and tools.

Sales and marketing are the two major components one needs to run a successful business. Both marketing and sales work in tandem with the ultimate goal of finding, attracting, and retaining customers for a company.

These two departments have similar goals, but their methods for reaching them differ.

While marketing focuses more on the top of the funnel, like reaching a target audience or generating leads, the sales department focuses more on bottom-of-the-funnel transactions, ensuring customers go through with their purchase.

Learning about sales and marketing and the value each field brings to a business can build a company’s performance over time. 

Difference between sales and marketing

Put simply, marketing builds awareness and attracts leads to your business. Sales convert those leads into paying customers. Businesses need to use a holistic, collaborative approach that involves both departments working together to reach common goals.

Sales vs. marketing

Sales and marketing may overlap in some of their goals and responsibilities, but there are several important distinctions between them. 

Scope

How they’re similar: Marketing and sales strategies each work to target prospects and convert them into paying customers. Sales and marketing share the ultimate goal of selling, which increases a business’s revenue. 

How they’re different: A sales team’s and a marketing team’s scopes can differ regarding who owns which part of the funnel. Traditionally, B2C and B2B marketing strategies focus on the upper portion of the funnel, and there’s a handoff to sales somewhere in the middle of the funnel. Sales then handles the bottom of the funnel. 

Tactics

How they’re similar: Both sales and marketing appeal to customer wants and needs. 

How they’re different: Sales tactics often involve one-on-one contact with leads, including in-person meetings, product demonstrations, or conferences to engage with new customers directly.

Marketing tactics involve wide-reaching actions like direct-mail campaigns, radio spots, search engine optimization (SEO), social media ads, or brand ambassadors to reach a broad audience. Marketing tactics may also involve automation, to allow marketers to serve content to leads more efficiently. 

Tools

How they’re similar: Sales and marketing both benefit from various digital tools that organize and track data.

How they’re different: Since sales often focus on direct interactions with customers, they need tools for relationship management. Customer relationship management (CRM) software, which collects, organizes, and analyze information about customers and their journey, is a core sales tool for any company. 

Since marketing casts a wider net to reach customers on various channels, they need tools to get insights, measure performance, and manage campaigns. 

Teams/roles

How they’re similar: Sales and marketing professionals follow a hierarchy of responsibility, where each employee has their own goals and objectives to drive engagement and profit. In some cases, both departments are responsible for lead generation and nurturing customers long after a sale. 

How they’re different: Sales and marketing require different areas of expertise and experience. Marketing teams may include roles like writers, graphic designers, and illustrators, and have individuals who specialize in social media, video, content strategy, and SEO. 

The sales team puts the marketing team’s work into play, ensuring customers make the final decision to invest in a product or service. A sales team sets quotas and volume goals to measure their performance. In most cases, these are based on a short-term period of time, such as a quarter or month.

Good sales reps are adept storytellers with high confidence and excellent communication skills. Sales professionals must know how to both pitch a product, leverage company messaging, and deal with people one-on-one. 

A primer on sales

Sales refers to the entire process of facilitating and completing a sales transaction. Sales teams deal with every stage of the sales process, from prospecting to education to conversion. A sales organization can scale from a single person to a department subdivided into teams.

• Sales representatives. Sales reps are employees who deal with customers one-on-one. Inside sales reps work remotely, while outside sales reps work with customers in person. Sales reps might be tasked with anything from cold calling to creating and sending educational materials to attending in-person meetings to meet sales goals. 
• Sales manager. Multi-person sales teams usually need managers to oversee the sales process. Sales management ensures their reps have all the necessary tools and follow the sales strategy. They might set sales targets and strategies, analyze customer data, and train new sales reps for the company. 
• Sales specialist. A sales specialist (or sales consultant—often used interchangeably) is the person with the most in-depth knowledge about a product or service. They are often responsible for product-specific market research, conducting product demos, and troubleshooting. 
• Account executive. The higher-level sales reps typically focus on bringing in new business, writing sales proposals, negotiating with clients, and closing deals. Account execs don’t usually find and recruit leads, though they may be responsible for many high- and low-level responsibilities in a smaller business. For other business types, like B2B businesses, the account executive might be a full-cycle sales rep who handles the account from initial interest through sale.
• Customer success. Sometimes the role of sales doesn’t end with a transaction. Sales may also include the customer success function, which focuses on retention. They’re charged with fostering positive relationships with their existing clients, renewing sales, and facilitating new purchases. 

A primer on marketing

Marketing is a set of strategies businesses use to attract potential customers to their product or services. 

A good marketing strategy focuses on four key factors, known as the 4 Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. The product is the goods or service itself, the price is what the consumer pays, the place is where and how the goods get marketed, and the promotion is the advertising strategy. 

Marketing team activities might include: 

• Market research. Teams conduct market research to understand a company’s target audience and forecast trends in the market. 
• Brand strategy. Marketing must answer the question, “Who are we as a company?” This impacts how the company presents itself—from the design of its products and website to the language it uses when talking to customers. 
• Channel strategies. Marketing leverages “channels” to reach a business’s audience, including social media marketing, email marketing, digital advertising, direct mail, and more. 
• Public relations. Publicists will reach out to media outlets to raise awareness. 
• Customer acquisition and retention. This involves creating an excellent customer experience to get someone to buy for the first time. 

These activities are usually assigned to various specialists on a marketing team—from social media strategists to brand managers—or, for small businesses, might be consolidated into a single marketing manager role. 

Managing sales and marketing departments

There are a few strategies for managing the sales and marketing teams to help streamline your success. 

Identify tensions 

Marketing and sales can sometimes butt heads. If overall sales are low or a new product doesn’t perform as expected, marketers might lay blame on the sales professionals for their ineffective selling strategies.

On the other hand, if sales are poor, salespeople may feel like marketing isn’t providing enough qualified leads or even reaching the right audience. A lack of communication or understanding of the specific roles of each department can also cause tension, with both sides unclear about the responsibilities of the other. 

Align the communication 

Strong communication can be an effective way to align your marketing and sales teams. Aligning both departments with regards to the customer journey and a clear delineation of what is expected of each team can help clarify objectives and make better use of available resources.

A service level agreement, which clearly defines a partnership's terms and outlines each department's specific goals and accountability options if targets are not met, helps align everyone. Ensuring that data and research are shared across the teams is also crucial. 

Read: How to Create a Marketing Plan [+ Free Template]

Know what to prioritize

Not all companies can—or want—to have both sales and marketing. Some businesses focus on digital marketing efforts, and charge marketers with the responsibility of both growing their reach and converting people to purchase.

For some, the rise of digital commerce has diminished the need for dedicated sales departments. Many customers (specifically in the beauty and fashion markets) no longer need a person to help sell them a product when they can make their own purchases online.

For some businesses, this can help them streamline their necessary expenditures and figure out where else to allocate their time and attention. 

Other companies focus on sales efforts—a B2B company that sells a specialized product to a niche audience, for example, might invest in a sales team first. A single sale might yield high revenue and a long-term relationship for these companies.

Gain competitive advantage by improving sales and marketing

Sales and marketing are heavily intertwined fields with their own separate objectives. Essentially, marketing is the launch pad of a sales plan, while sales is the actual execution. Aligning these departments can facilitate harmonious cooperation, which can help a company grow and impact its bottom line over time.

Sales and marketing FAQ

What are the duties of a sales and marketing department?

The sales and marketing department is responsible for generating leads and converting them into sales. They are also responsible for creating and executing marketing campaigns and managing the company's website and social media presence.

Is sales and marketing a good career?

There is no easy answer to this question since it depends on various factors, including your specific skills and interests. However, in general, sales and marketing can be a good career choice if you are outgoing, have strong communication skills, and are comfortable working in a fast-paced environment.

What are the 7 Ps in marketing?

The 7 Ps of marketing are product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical environment.

What do you need for sales and marketing?

For sales and marketing, you need a product or service to sell, a target market, and a marketing plan.