Marketing is all about Sales?

Marketing is all about Sales! Had you asked me this three decades ago, I would’ve probably agreed, but now? Nahhh, not so much! I won’t deny that one of the key marketing objectives of a firm is to turn up their volume of sales, but neither would I agree to marketing revolving solely around revenue, there’s so much more to it.

Gone are those days when marketing had everything to do with flamboyant sales pitches enticing innocent customers into making purchases that they never even wanted to in the first place. Marketing is no longer just about traditional product-oriented firms concentrating their efforts on developing a product and assuming that there will always be a market or demand for their offerings. As obsolete as it sounds, this conventional approach could never stand up to the dynamics of the marketplace today and nor to the persistent threat of competitors swarming the industry.

Marketing has emerged from the depths of sales spiels to become more important, relevant, and relatable than ever before. Firms have shifted to an approach that is more consumer-faced, an approach that prioritises customers and keeps them central to everything. Firms have been making an effort to integrate consumers into various facets of a business - analysing market demand; designing products that meet consumer needs; investing time into initiating interactions with the consumer; delivering a valuable consumer experience and building a relationship with them.

In a time of exploding choice and volatile markets – the contemporary way of marketing is exactly what companies look up to. Firms that cater to consumer needs by tailoring and offering appropriate products are more likely to survive longer and be profitable than those firms that have been following the product-centric approach.

Marketing is not just an ad-campaign or a way of advertising, that’s a very limited view – marketing embraces much more than just telling people about a product and selling it to them. It’s about connecting the right consumer to the right product. Marketing aids sales teams and employees across the organisation in adopting an outside-in perspective, enabling them to perceive the offered products or services from the customer's point of view. It assists in effectively communicating the value of these offerings in a customer-centric manner and empowers them to overcome obstacles that can only be tackled with profound customer knowledge and understanding.

Marketing, today, is an extensive and ubiquitous way of doing business that’s part of everyone’s job profile. Its job is not to lure customers into purchasing a company’s product but the ability to build a relationship with them!