What is the difference between sales and marketing careers?

The sales and marketing field covers a wide variety of interesting career options in virtually any industry. 

Sales and marketing is an area of business that is focused on bringing together products and services with the people and businesses that need them. It’s all about “getting the word out.” Although they often work together to accomplish similar goals, the two areas are actually quite different. Let’s explore.

Marketing

Those who work in marketing tend to be creative, forward-thinking and enjoy creating strategies that work with current trends.

Marketing management focuses on areas like advertising and promotion, market research and trend analysis. Working in marketing means understanding a brand and how to represent the brand through design, copywriting and creative direction. Courses in these kinds of programs include consumer behaviour, marketing research and using digital tools such as Google Analytics and how to develop content for search engine optimization (SEO). If this all sounds interesting to you, here are some programs to look into:

• Business - Marketing, Diploma
• Business Administration - Marketing, Advanced Diploma
• Honours Bachelor of Commerce - Digital Marketing, Degree
• Marketing Management, Graduate Certificate

You can also further your skills in specialty areas, like sport and event marketing, and focus on the unique elements of those industries. You’ll learn about working within both amateur and professional sports associations. You’ll also learn about the unique aspects of non-profit organizations and how to manage events and festivals that are designed to raise money.

Customer Relationship Marketing and Sales Management

People who work in sales and client service tend to be energetic, outgoing and they might be described as a “people person.” They enjoy working with data that can be produced from customer relationship marketing (CRM) software to develop strategies that will help customers and clients find the products and services they are looking for.

Sales can be done in person, over the phone or online. Depending on your industry, you might work in an office or you could travel around to sell your product.

Client service is a crucial part of any business. These representatives are often the first point of contact for a business. They must be the face and voice of their employer, working closely with customers to ensure they have a great customer experience. Specializing your skills in customer relationship marketing and sales management will allow you to dive deeper into CRM technologies and strategies for leading successful sales teams.

Public Relations

People who work in public relations and corporate communications require strong attention to detail, need to be able to quickly adapt to change and have a knack for building key relationships.

A career in public relations requires you to maintain the professional, positive image of a brand, person or organization. This can be done by creating different media that tell good stories about an organization that further generate awareness of the brand in a positive way to the public. It also means being able to adapt quickly to address negative concerns as they arise.

Sales and Marketing Careers

There are many rewarding career opportunities in the sales and marketing field, such as:

• marketing manager
• public relations manager
• publicist
• sports marketing manager
• events and sponsorships manager
• sales manager
• business development representative
• Salesforce administrator
• social media assistant
• content marketing manager
• market research analyst