If you're an online marketer, you've probably thought about marketing and sales, but are they the same or are they different? What is the difference? And why does it matter? That's exactly what we're going to talk about today in the Resilient Faith Online podcast, episode 13. Welcome. I'm Marissa Shadrick, host of the Resilient Faith Online Show. I'm a digital strategist and certified copywriter, but more importantly, a woman of faith. In this podcast, you'll find a biblical perspective to the external and internal challenges we face as online content creators. Join me for some inspiration and practical tips as we let our faith shape our work to create positive change online. To connect with our private Facebook group of faith-based online entrepreneurs, go to marissach.com forward slash faith. Marissa here. So glad to bring this podcast to you. Today we're going to talk about the difference between marketing and sales. And I'll tell you a little story. Some decades ago, I made it very clear to everyone, including my husband, that I was not a salesperson. I hated sales. But what I actually hated was a wrong perspective that I had about sales. I pictured that, you know, pushy uh car salesman trying to push something on me that I didn't want. And yet, you know, if I came across a great bargain at a store, like if I found a pair of shoes or a dress or something and there was a great sale, I would completely share that with my girlfriends. If I read a book that I absolutely loved and got so much value out of it, I would share that with friends and family. Or even if I knew of a noble cause, I would talk it up with anyone I was actually promoting. So today, not only do I sell products, online products and services, and I coach and I do copy, but I also help other people through the copywriting. So isn't that crazy that someone that thought she would never sell and now I sell and I realize really it's just an exchange. It's monetary exchange for something of value and it's a fair exchange. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that. But specifically today, we're going to talk about the difference between marketing and sales. You know, I write copy, and oftentimes I have people that will connect with me and they'll want a sales page done. And a sales page takes a lot of work. Uh, there's a lot to it, a lot of writing, a lot of social proof that needs to be put in there. There's a lot of different elements, but I typically ask them if they have a marketing strategy in place that will bring people to the page. Because if they don't, then I don't want to take their money. I don't want to accept the job because the marketing is very, very important. It's not like you can build it and they will come. I'm sure you've heard that expression. You build something, you build a page, you build a website, and you expect everything to just happen, right? It doesn't work that way. And oftentimes, if people don't have a marketing strategy, then they need to start there and really begin to figure out who their market is, how they're going to kind of bring them in the fold, how they're going to grow their email list, all of these things. And then they'll be ready to create a sales page based on the products and services that align with your market. So the only exception would be if if you were a very sought-after visible brand and people knew exactly what you did, you had you didn't have to explain it. It was something that people were just clamoring to get their hands on, and you had a highly engaged community, you know, tens of thousands of people, you could probably build a sales page of something because you know your customer, you know your audience, right? You know what it is they need. So if you create a sales page and you do some email marketing, you could convert and that wouldn't be a problem. But most of us, that's not the case. And I'm guessing to the people I'm talking to, you're probably just like me. That is not the case. We have to tee things up pretty well. We have to have a long runway so that we can build that trust with people that we come across. And even in that scenario of that sought-after visible brand, I will bet you that they had a lot of marketing that preceded that particular promotion. So for most of us, let's just assume that sales pages are not enough, especially if you're trying to sell to a cold audience. Now, I want to just compare the two, and I think this will help you kind of understand the difference between marketing and sales because we need to be very clear and we need to look at the whole picture. So I just kind of made a list side by side, marketing, sales, to kind of show you a comparison, and I think that's the best way to kind of show you in an audible way the difference between marketing and sales. Marketing opens the opportunity for a sale, and a sale closes the deal. Now, when you think of marketing, marketing turns leads to prospects. That means those prospects have either opted in, they're part of your community, they haven't purchased anything yet, but they have heard you, they trust you, they're interested in the content that you have. Sales turns those prospects into customers. And all of this takes time. Just remember that leads are unqualified contacts, but when they are prospects, they are qualified contacts. And those people are more likely to buy something later on as they get to know you and like you and trust you. Marketing informs how you are different, how you help people and you help them in a very informative and entertaining way. The sales communicates your unique value proposition. So once they see how you are different, and that could be related to your story, your background, what you bring to the table, then the sales, when you're actually trying to sell a digital product or a course, you are sharing the unique value proposition, the transformation of the product. Now, most of this is in the context of online marketing for people that are selling educational content, courses, coaching, that type of thing. Marketing always considers turning cold leads into prospects, and that's often done by offering some type of lead magnet, some PDF, some giveaway of some sort, a digital piece of content that they will give you their email address in exchange for that content. Whereas sales, once they're a customer, you're more concerned about that customer experience, the customer service, the value that you bring to them and how you interact with them. It's not over once you sell. You continue to nurture those customers. Now, marketing stirs interest. So, marketing, depending on how you're doing your marketing, whether you're creating free content as a blog or a podcast or a YouTube video, it stirs interest. And even if you're putting things on social media, little tips, you know, those kind of things stir interest. But sales generates revenue. Marketing considers the big picture. You consider nurturing this audience because if they become a prospect, if they join your email list, if they become a customer, you consider the lifetime customer value. And that's not always measurable when you're first starting out and you're posting things on social media or you're posting a blog because you might think, well, nobody's subscribing, but people may be reading, maybe watching, maybe interested. They just haven't taken that first step. So sometimes it's not as easy to measure, but you can use Google Analytics to see people that visit your site and so forth to get a better idea. Sales is a little bit more measurable because you can consider the return on investment. Like if you run Facebook ads, you can see you know how many have converted. So it's a little bit more measurable. So oftentimes with marketing, we consider content marketing, social media marketing, brand marketing, email marketing, video marketing. And when we're doing sales, we're more targeted because we're positioning whatever we're putting out there to tee it up for a sale. So we might do like a webinar, we might do a challenge, or we might do a boot camp, or it might be an order bump. In other words, they opt into something and then on the thank you page, there's a low price offer for $19 just to kind of liquidate your Facebook ad cost. So be very clear that the marketing is the prequel to the sales. It identifies your target customer. The marketing part, and I love it when you can use quizzes and surveys because you really get an idea of what their pain points are, what their struggles are, what the problems are that they have. So that when you sell and you get into the sales part of it, you're selling a benefit that is very targeted for your market. You don't want to create something that is misaligned with what they really need at this point, right? At this moment. The marketing is the beginning of the journey, but in the sales, it is the continuation for a deeper relationship. It doesn't stop once you get the sale. You continue because remember, we talked about the lifetime customer value. Just because they buy doesn't mean it's over. It's the beginning of a deeper relationship now. And those customers can become those super fans later on that recommend other people to you. Now, what are some of the things that they both have in common? Now, marketing and sales, they both attract, right? They both attract. So that's important to remember. They both attract and they're both ongoing. So which is more important? Well, let me just say this to give you a little bit of clarity between the two of marketing and sales. Marketing is not effective without sales. You can't just put out free stuff, free stuff, free stuff and never sell anything because you're gonna go broke, right? So marketing is not effective without sales, and sales is not effective without marketing. So they're very different, but both are needed. So the application, so how do we start? If we want to start marketing, we need to understand our customer. And we may start first with market research. We might see how viable our particular offer is. We may just start just looking and asking a lot of questions, being very inquisitive, being very curious, so we can find out some of the demographics, so we can find out their age and their gender and their marital status and where are they as far as family status, financial status, what are their interests, what are their pain points? We become very curious. And then when you get to the sales part, you're not really selling, they are buying because you understand them and you're meeting them where they are. Their profile becomes very, very clear, and that's the best way to sell when you understand your market and you have a product that is designed to meet them where they are. Sometimes we think we know what they want, but it's not exactly what they want. So I just wanted to give you an overview of the difference between marketing and sales because it was a little confusing for me to understand the difference between the two because I thought they were the same, but they're not. They're not. So hopefully, you know, this helps you get a little bit more clarity about marketing and sales. And in both, I'm just gonna say this. There is a wonderful old proverb that I absolutely love. It's Proverbs 16, 11. And it says, the Lord demands accurate scales and balances, He sets the standards for fairness in everything we do, whether it's marketing or sales, we are serving people. We are using the internet to create positive change online, and you have talents and skills and abilities, you have what someone else needs. So you need to consider why you are online in the first place? What type of impact, what kind of influence do you want to have on others? And you have an opportunity to do that with the internet. There's so much good that we can do as online creators. So whether we are marketing, attracting people, building that trust, or whether we're creating products to sell that's really going to be beneficial for the people that buy, why are we doing it? We're doing it to serve, we're doing it to help, we're doing it to make the world a better place. Use your talents and gifts to serve others and let your faith shape your work. So I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I really wanted to share this. It was a topic I had on my list of things I wanted to talk about. And I hope it gives you an understanding because I don't want you to just create a sales page and think that that's enough, that I'll build it and then we'll come. There's a lot that precedes that. So hopefully you can think through a very clean funnel to bring people onto your email list or to be bring people to a webinar or to bring them to a boot camp or some type of challenge you're going to have and build on that and then show them how you can bring value to their lives with the products and services that you have. So until next time, cultivate resilient faith online and continue to create positive change in the world. If you found this podcast helpful, then subscribe from wherever you're listening today so you never miss an episode. Every subscription, review, or rating means so much to me. So keep them coming and share this with a friend. For more free content, go to marissashadrick.com and remember keep cultivating resilient faith online to create positive change in the world.