Course Content
1. Marketing and Sales
2. Customer Experience
3. Conclusion
As we stated at the beginning of the material, marketing and sales represent two business function within an organisation, that determine the lead generation and revenue generation. While marketing in characteriszed by the process of getting people’s attention regarding a product or a service, sales represent the activities that need to be done in order to sell that product or service (Hart, 2019). What you should remember as a difference between marketing and sales is the fact that marketing is responsible forwith the development of a strategy, while sales isare responsible forwith the implementation of the strategy (Funk, s.n.). Another important differences between marketing and sales isare the following: marketing is interested inby the needs and desires of the customer, while sales are interested inby the needs of the seller; marketing views business as a consumer satisfying process, while sales views business as a goods producing and selling process (Jena, 2020). We also talked about online marketing and e-commerce and we learned that online marketing represents the practice of promoting a product orf a service via the internet, using channels like E-mail, Facebook, YouTube and so on. On the other hand, e-commerce represents the buying and selling process of goods and services, or the transmission of funds or data through an electronic network, especially the Internet. This guide has been realiszed in order to develop new skills, knowledge and competencies for women in rural areas, but also to increase the entrepreneurial opportunities and the employment ones for them. The chapter related to “customer experience” which contains the definitions of this concept, the differences between the two concepts, “customer service” and “customer experience” but also some ideas of how to manage the customers’ experience, wanted to bring to the forefront important knowledge about this subject, especially for the target group. Therefore, this concept is a very important one, especially for those who want to open a business, because this information can help them to attract as many customers as possible but also to be able to maintain them for a long period of time in order to develop the business more and more. Moreover, we hope that women from rural areas are really helped by this chapter, but also by this guide and we hope that the employment rate among them and also the number of women entrepreneurs will increase in the near future.
Definitions and goals
Marketing is a process that involves a range of activities carried out by the company to promote the sales of the company’s products or services. The process begins with identifying customer needs, satisfying those needs profitably by creating, communicating, and delivering offers in exchange for a price that is evaluated by customers (Surbhi, 2019).
It’s a way to get the target audience interested in the company’s offerings. All activities that try to draw customers’ attention and retain the company’s offerings are covered under the marketing terms, such as market research and analysis, product development, promotion, distribution methods, sales and after-sales service (Ibidem).
Marketing refers to what you transmit about your offer, how you communicate the value of your offer to your target audience, and why customers should choose it from all the options available on the market. It is a promotion of the offer through advertisements using various platforms, such as newspapers, TVs, pamphlets, social media, such as Facebook page, Instagram account, Twitter account, etc. (Surbhi, 2019).
Sales are nothing more than the primary purpose of any business enterprise, in the sense that all the activities of a company are aimed at increasing sales. Basically, it includes activities that result in the sale of “what the company offers to its customers” in a certain period of time, by convincing customers that buying the company’s product will be beneficial for them. To this end, the salesperson must have exceptional communication and persuasion skills in order to effectively transmit to the customer the benefits of the product or service, while answering their questions (Ibidem).
Each company has a specific department for the sale of its products and services, which are often divided into different teams, based on:
- Geographical location, where the teams offer the product and service to,
- Products and services, that teams need to sell,
- The target customer, to whom the products and services are to be offered.
Each team has its own sales volume goal, for the month, quarter and year it needs to reach. To increase sales, special offers such as coupons, free gifts, etc. and discounts are used as a strategy to attract customers’ attention and encourage them to buy the product or service (Surbhi, 2019).
Goals
The marketing objective of a business isto promote their product, company or brand through clear communication. The main goal is to look at the biggerpicture and clearly explain how the product or service benefits the widest possible audience, generating potential customers.
A sales team sets goals based on quotas and volume. They tend to be based on a short-term period of time, usually based on the quarter or financial month. Goals and objectives are determined by how much the business needs to sell in order to generate enough profit to continue to be operational (Casarella, 2021).