Sales Strategies vs. Marketing: Making the Right Choice For Your Business

Sales strategies and marketing are usually two of the main drivers for helping any business succeed, but what is the difference, and where should you focus? If you want to help your business grow, these tips and tricks can help you figure out where to start.

The Differences Between Sales Strategies and Marketing

• Marketing is essential to achieving sales, but it should be different from your sales strategy plan
• A marketing strategy works to identify your target audience and helps them understand what your business has to offer them
• Sales strategies are focused on making the sale and converting people from browsers to buyers
• A good marketing strategy generates leads and helps people become aware of your business but isn’t necessarily focused on conversions
• Sales strategies focus on converting customers, while marketing strategies are generally in place to help you reach your target audience
• These two strategies work well together to not only create visibility for your business but also generate income

Inbound vs. Outbound Sales Strategies

• In order to achieve sales goals, your business should incorporate both inbound and outbound sales into your strategy or focus on just one or the other
• The main difference between inbound and outbound sales in the source of the leads
• Inbound sales strategies revolve around pulling in leads who have already expressed interest in your company
• Inbound leads should focus on personalizing the process to the user, and your marketing team should collect data during this process to better address the needs of the user and create better content
• Outbound sales strategies focus on prospective buyers who haven’t yet expressed interest in your business
• Outbound strategies generally need to be more aggressive to get the attention of the potential customer, rather than creating personalized messaging

Why You Should Make a Sales Strategy Plan

• Review your reports and data from the past year to understand how many sales you made and how many were a direct result of your previous sales or marketing strategy
• Try to pinpoint what areas in your current sales strategy template are working and what can be improved
• Create goals that are slightly ambitious but attainable
• Identify clear goals focused on finding new leads, boosting repeat customers, and improving your overall returns
• State any specific key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to monitor and determine a realistic timeline to reach your goals
• A successful sales strategy has clear priorities that everyone understands, measurable outcomes, guidelines to follow, and goals that everyone involved can work on

Creating a Winning Sales Strategy

• Most visitors to your business won’t understand your value at first glance, so create powerful messaging that is easy to understand
• Instead of talking only about what you do or sell, create a story that highlights your strengths and creates an urgency to encourage conversions
• Most interactions result in a user taking no action rather than choosing the competition, so shift your focus from “why choose us” to “why you should change, now”
• A successful sales strategy example would be to look at your competitors and answer the questions about what solutions you offer a user to questions they could have, often without realizing it
• Don’t focus just on getting your facts and offerings out, but instead create a compelling and memorable story that will help your message come alive
• Effective storytellers can illustrate the user’s current state and show what is possible should they choose to do business with you
• Instead of focusing on solution selling language, speak to the user’s journey and address their needs with relevant messaging and content
• While customer profiles and personas can be helpful, they can lead your messaging and sales strategy astray
• Buyers are most often motivated by outside influences, so you may find success when you speak to their current situation and how not doing business with you could result in them missing out
• Instead of leading with questions or trying to be a “top advisor” in your industry, take some time to identify what your customers want most and deliver insight into what can help them improve their business or life

Successful sales strategies will align with your marketing plan to generate the most leads and revenue. To improve your business and succeed in any industry, you need to ensure you’re reaching customers and achieving conversions.

Sources

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/marketing-strategy-vs-sales-nicole-williams/
https://www.digitalmarketing.org/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-sales-and-marketing
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/difference-between-sales-and-marketing
https://www.inc.com/project-entrepreneur/5-steps-to-creating-an-effective-sales-strategy.html

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15773-how-to-write-a-sales-plan.html