Marketing vs. Sales

Marketing and sales are both aimed at increasing revenue. They are so closely intertwined that people often don’t realize the difference between the two. Indeed, in small organizations, the same people typically perform both sales and marketing tasks. Nevertheless, marketing is different from sales and as the organization grows, the roles and responsibilities become more specialized.

Sales vs Marketing Activities

The typical goal of marketing is to generate interest in the product and create leads or prospects. Marketing activities include:

• consumer research to identify the needs of the customers
• product development – designing innovative products to meet existing or latent needs
• advertising the products to raise awareness and build the brand.
• pricing products and services to maximize long-term revenue.

On the other hand, sales activities are focused on converting prospects to actual paying customers. Sales involves directly interacting with the prospects to persuade them to purchase the product.

Marketing thus tends to focus on the general population (or, in any case, a large set of people) whereas sales tends to focus on individuals or a small group of prospects.

Comparison chart

	Marketing	Sales
Approach	Broader range of activities to sell product/service, client relationship etc.; determine future needs and has a strategy in place to meet those needs for the long term relationship.	makes customer demand match the products the company currently offers.
Focus	Overall picture to promote, distribute, price products/services; fulfill customer's wants and needs through products and/or services the company can offer.	fulfill sales volume objectives
Process	Analysis of market, distribution channels, competitive products and services; Pricing strategies; Sales tracking and market share analysis; Budget	Usually one to one
Scope	Market research; Advertising; Sales; Public relations; Customer service and satisfaction .	Once a product has been created for a customer need, persuade the customer to purchase the product to fulfill her needs
Horizon	Longer term	Short term
Strategy	pull	push
Priority	Marketing shows how to reach to the Customers and build long lasting relationship	Selling is the ultimate result of marketing.
Identity	Marketing targets the construction of a brand identity so that it becomes easily associated with need fulfillment.	Sales is the strategy of meeting needs in an opportunistic, individual method, driven by human interaction. There's no premise of brand identity, longevity or continuity. It's simply the ability to meet a need at the right time.

Reference: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Marketing_vs_Sales