Introduction to Integrated Marketing and Sales (Part 1)

Hi  I am Dr. Carlos Valdez, Founder and Director of Marketing and Sales. This is the video audio blog for December 1, 2024, and with this post, we celebrate 6 months of Marketing and Sales, making this our 24th blog post. The title of this post is "Introduction to Integrated Marketing and Sales (Part 1)."

This post is dedicated as a sign of gratitude to everyone who supported us from the beginning and believed in this project. Thank you to all the colleagues who shared their professional experience in our interviews, to all our students who took our first course, "Leadership in Sales: AI Tactics", to those who participated in the "AI for Everyone" course, and to those who attended the mini-courses and downloaded our first report: "The 10 Key Trends for Sales Directors."

In Marketing and Sales, we are very receptive to our community, which also suggested creating a report titled "The 10 Key Trends for Marketing Directors." Thank you for the suggestion! As a result, the blog post on this topic will be turned into a report and launched this December. Finally, thank you to the entire marketing and sales community. We are growing every day. Thanks to those who visit our website regularly, watch our videos on YouTube, and listen to our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Your feedback motivates us to continue generating valuable content that is useful for your marketing and sales activities.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone. It has been a very gratifying experience, and we already have many projects, courses, interviews, and reports planned for 2025.

Now, let’s begin this week’s post. The title of our video audio blog for December 1 is: "Introduction to Integrated Marketing and Sales (Part 1)."

Topics We’ll Review:

1. What is marketing?
2. The Four P’s.
3. Marketing Communication.
4. What is sales?
5. Marketing/Sales Coordinator.
6. Target market, prospects, conversions, customers, and loyal customers.
7. Direct and indirect channels.

1. What is marketing?

Sometimes there is confusion between what marketing and sales are and how they are related. Even some professionals working in these areas experience confusion due to how they are managed in their companies. That is why it is important to start with the definition of marketing.

According to the American Marketing Association (2017), marketing is:
"The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."

The four key areas unique to the field of marketing are:

1. Consumer behavior: Understanding how prospects and customers behave.
2. Market behavior: Analyzing how a market grows or declines.
3. Company-market interactions: Understanding how a company interacts with its markets.
4. Marketing contributions: Improving business performance and social welfare.

Marketing always has the responsibility of showing its monetary contribution to the company. The way marketing should help the company is by generating income in terms of profits. This process is not straightforward because it requires a series of steps that need to occur before the sale. Generally speaking, the consumer must be aware of the brand, develop a positive attitude toward it, and ultimately decide whether to purchase it. However, today digital marketing can truly demonstrate the economic value of marketing because everything can now be measured very directly.

Therefore, marketing and sales have undergone and will continue to undergo profound transformation due to technological changes that are impacting the interaction between consumers and businesses. Today, especially with artificial intelligence, data analysis, and automation, this evolution is even more accelerated.

This is why we need to conceptualize a holistic view of marketing and its different areas. There should be an integrated vision of marketing, sales, and digital marketing, and how you can use them in your company to generate value in the customer’s life.

2. The Four P’s

The most widely used framework in marketing is called the 4 P’s or marketing mix. These are the variables that a company will develop uniquely to offer a differentiated sales proposition to its potential customers or target market, leading to sales generation for the company. The company has control over the Four P’s:

• Product or service: What they will offer.
• Price: What they will charge.
• Place or distribution: The strategy they will follow to sell the product.
• Promotion: The way they will promote and create brand awareness about their brand and products.

3. Marketing Communication

Promotion is also known as Marketing Communication or Promotional Mix, which includes all the different types of communication efforts from the company to educate, inform, persuade, and generate an ongoing dialogue with the consumer about what their brand or brands have to offer (1).

The most common types of brand communication are:

1. Advertising: A paid form of communication by an identified company to promote its brands. It can be through traditional media like television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and billboards, or through digital media such as search engine marketing (SEM), website advertising, and social media.
2. Sales Promotion: Short-term incentives offered to consumers to stimulate their immediate desire to purchase. These activities include creating coupons, discounts, rebates, loyalty programs, and more.
3. Public Relations: A set of activities aimed at improving the image and relationship of the company with its key stakeholders, including customers, employees, shareholders, media, government, community, and others.
4. Direct Marketing: The objective is to create a unique dialogue with a specific consumer using personalized communication. Traditional forms of direct marketing include phone and mail, while modern methods include the Internet, email, social media, and text messaging to mobile phones, with the latter being the most commonly used.
5. Digital Marketing: This includes all online strategies and tactics used by the company to connect with prospects and customers. These strategies include market research, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, content marketing, customer service, and tactics like blogs, websites, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media, email marketing, mobile marketing, video marketing, and influencer marketing.
6. Events and Experiences: Brand-sponsored tactics to generate a unique interaction with prospects and customers.
7. Word of Mouth: Consumer-to-consumer interaction to discuss products, services, and brands. The only way a company can influence this type of communication is by doing things right from the beginning, generating a positive experience so customers speak favorably about their experience to others. It’s important to note that word of mouth can become negative if the consumer experience was unsatisfactory.
8. Personal Selling: A strategic face-to-face interaction between the brand and prospects or customers, helping them resolve their business needs with the company’s products and services.

4. What is Sales?

Now that marketing has been defined, it is also important to define sales. Based on the previous section, we can see that sales is one of the most important forms of strategic communication within a company’s marketing efforts. Sales are part of marketing. Different companies may have different types of internal organization, but the most common setup is that the sales manager reports to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).

Some companies may have sales and marketing in separate areas with different departments and managers, both reporting to senior management. This setup will only work if both areas function as a team. Regardless of the company’s type and size, both departments need to work together as a team. Both areas are interdependent. In general terms, it can be said that marketing defines the strategy to follow, while sales implement the tactics to achieve the desired objectives.

It is impossible for a good marketing professional to disregard sales, and vice versa. Both sales and marketing share the same goal of "exchanging offerings that create value in the consumer’s life." However, each area contributes to this shared goal in its unique way, while at the same time, they need each other to achieve their overall objectives.

In small companies, it is highly likely that both areas are combined and, in many cases, depend on a single individual. That person must define the strategy and implement the tactics.

5. Marketing/Sales Coordinator

This marketing/sales coordinator needs to identify the target market, conduct market research, provide insights about the product or service that the market expects, and determine the price they are willing to pay. They must also define the brand identity and organize marketing communication efforts to generate sales.

In terms of sales, this person will define the sales plan, direct its implementation, and evaluate and control personal selling actions. If working with a sales team, the sales manager must perform the following activities: “recruiting, selecting, training, equipping, assigning, supervising, compensating, and motivating” (1).

6. Target Market, Prospects, Conversions, Customers, and Loyal Customers

A target market is the group of customers most likely to buy the company’s product or service. All marketing/sales efforts will be directed toward this group (1).

To better understand or define a target market, the first step is to generate prospects. Prospects are inquiries or referrals about potential customers who are or might be interested in the product (1).

A prospect can then be transformed into a qualified customer. A qualified customer is still a potential buyer but has shown interest in the product, possesses the authority to make the purchase, and also has the financial capability to do so (1).

If the qualified customer purchases the product, a conversion occurs—this is when a potential customer becomes a paying customer. 

If the potential customer purchases the product, a conversion occurs, which is when we turn a potential customer into an actual customer.

A customer is the person or business that has already bought our product. It is important to highlight that, through a good purchasing and product experience, the customer will continue buying from the company and will eventually become a loyal customer (1).

A defined set of loyal customers is the primary objective of any sales professional, marketer, or entrepreneur. With loyal customers, companies can make financial projections about their growth, moving from small businesses to medium-sized ones, and eventually to large corporations.

7. Direct and Indirect Channels

The marketing/sales professional can use direct and indirect channels to influence the consumer. Direct channels are those that provide direct interaction between the seller and the buyer, such as face-to-face communication, mobile, Internet, phone, or mail. Indirect channels involve the marketing/sales professional using intermediaries such as affiliates, sales representatives, wholesalers, and retailers.

Next week, we will continue with the second part of this blog post.

Thank you for your attention to this blog post: "Introduction to Integrated Marketing and Sales (Part 1)." If you’re interested in more resources on branding, marketing, and sales, remember that at Marketing and Sales, we offer courses and content designed to help you develop your skills.

We also offer a mini-course on Branding, Personal Branding, and Branding on LinkedIn. We are grateful to everyone who follows us on our platforms: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Don’t forget we are also on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok!

For more information, contact me at [email protected].

Additionally, I invite you to explore our free introductory course titled AI for All:
https://www.mercadotecniayventas.com/offers/HBvfFzh6/checkout

Finally, I remind you that at Marketing and Sales, we always strive to generate value. Thank and until next time!

References:

1. The Definitive Source for Marketing Terms and Definitions. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://marketing-dictionary.org/
2. Keller, K. L. (2009). Building strong brands in a modern marketing communications environment. Journal of Marketing Communications, 15(2–3), 139–155. 
3. Ole, P. (2016). United we stand, divided we fall. Marketing News, 50(4), 26–27.
4. Day, G. S., & Montgomery, D. B. (1999). Charting new directions for marketing. Journal of Marketing, 63(4), 3–13. 
5. Current marketing trends from the 'State of Marketing' report. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.salesforce.com/hub/marketing/state-of-marketing-report/
6. Day, G. S. (2011). Closing the marketing capabilities gap. Journal of Marketing, 75(4), 183–195.  

7. The CMO Survey. (2019, February). Retrieved from https://cmosurvey.org/results/february-2019/