Sales managers and marketing managers are both responsible for managing and organising their respective divisions within a company. There’s no doubt, however, that a business’ sales and marketing departments may be separate, but they’re closely linked. While sales managers and marketing managers may work closely together to achieve certain goals and objectives, their roles and responsibilities have defined differences and this must be understood to avoid crossover and confusion. As an employer, you should ensure that the right tasks are going to the right managers if you want your business to run smoothly and effectively.
At the end of the day, sales managers and marketing managers hold some of the most important positions within a business structure. Marketing and sales targets being met can be the difference between business success and failure. Together, they are responsible for driving sales to your ideal target audience and meeting all of your sales and marketing-related goals.
In this article, we look at the differences, as well as the similarities, between sales managers and marketing managers, and their roles and responsibilities.
Table of Contents
Understanding The Role Of Sales Managers
Sales managers are highly organised people with a deep understanding of numbers, sales, and statistics. Sales managers make use of sales data and a range of tools and applications to develop new sales strategies, ways to improve products and services, and ways to improve customer satisfaction.
These managers are in charge of a team of sales representatives and will need to have fantastic leadership skills in order to motivate their team to push sales, whilst understanding how customer relationship management can make the difference between closing a sale and and that sales lead walking away.
There is often frequent travel required of sales managers as they are required to meet up with wholesalers, retailers and distributors to discuss business strategies. This job may require working overtime or working weekends, as all sales professionals know that sometimes closing a sale can only be achieved when those individuals are free to discuss the benefits of the product or service they’re selling.
The responsibilities of a sales manager should include:
- Coming up with sales plans and strategies
- Assisting customers that may have questions about the company’s products and services
- Determining the profitability of certain products
- Managing their sales team and motivating them to push sales
- Setting sales goals
- Training team members
- Communicating with other divisions
Understanding The Role Of Marketing Managers
Marketing managers are responsible for all of a business’ marketing efforts. They will decide when and where to run campaigns, which specials to run, and which platforms should be the focal point of marketing efforts.
Marketing requires creativity and an attention to detail. The brand’s identity should be kept consistent throughout marketing campaigns so that the customer has a clear idea of who the business is and so they can decide if that business meets their needs or not.
Understanding a business’ culture is paramount to customer acquisition these days, which is why both sales and marketing departments need to work closely together to achieve success. It is marketing campaigns that communicate who the business is, and it is a sales drive that takes interested potential customers and turns them into paying ones.
Marketing managers need to keep on top of the latest marketing trends, which, in the age of technology, are forever progressing, making market research a key part of the role. They should have a clear idea of what the company’s competitors are doing in terms of marketing and find ways to get a few steps ahead.
The responsibilities of a marketing manager should include:
- Coming up with a marketing plan and strategies
- Negotiating and closing certain business contracts
- Deciding the pricing of certain products
- Determining when discounts and specials should run
- Managing their team and ensuring that all marketing tasks run according to schedule
- Dealing with clients
- Training team members
- Communicating effectively with other teams
Key Differences Between A Sales Manager And A Marketing Manager
Processes
A sales manager manages the sales process while a marketing manager is in charge of all marketing operations. They’re responsible for two different parts of the same process – marketing managers capture sales leads via marketing campaigns, and sales managers turn those leads into actual paying customers.
Team Size
Sales managers usually manage smaller teams than marketing managers do. That’s because sales and marketing professionals take care of different tasks for a business, and marketing tasks are more varied. There are many different approaches a business can take to lead generation via marketing campaigns, meaning they need a more varied team for tasks such as these.
Brand Identity vs Customer Acquisition
Sales managers take care of the sales pipeline and driving people to the business while the marketing manager focuses on keeping up a consistent and cohesive brand identity. Both rely on each other to be successful. A sales team can’t meet sales targets if they don’t have a strong brand to sell, and a marketing team can’t meet their targets if the business isn’t successfully selling the product or service.
Targets vs Results
Sales managers are target based while marketing managers are more result-orientated. Sales managers meet their targets if they make sales – it’s that simple. But a marketing managers goals might be more focussed on conversions – how many people see their marketing efforts and how many of those people actually reach out to the business as an interested party.
This tells them if their campaigns have been successful or not, and allows them to tweak accordingly to get as many people through the door as possible for the sales team to turn into paying customers.
Revenue vs Lead Generation
Sales managers focus on revenue generation activity, while marketing managers focus on lead generation. A sales manager has to make the business money as it’s their job to bring in paying customer. A marketing manager has to cast as large a net as possible to give the sales team the best chance to make those sales.
Essentially, the sales team needs the marketing team more than the marketing team needs the sales team, as marketing is the step before sales in the selling the process. After the marketing team has done their job, it’s up to the sales team from there.
Objectives
Sales’ primary objective is to make sales, while marketing is more nuanced in that it needs to portray the brand a certain way and come up with new innovations and ideas. That means the objectives are different for both and leads to the different teams focussing on different approaches, marking them as distinct teams that exercise their skills in different ways.
From the above, you should gain an understanding of the different roles and responsibilities of sales managers and marketing managers, but understand how these two roles are closely linked.
Studying To Be A Sales Or Marketing Manager
Are you interested in becoming a sales or marketing manager? Most sales and marketing managers have a bachelor’s degree in subjects such as business, finance, or marketing. Sales managers usually lean towards business while marketing managers typically focus on marketing.
That being said, those with abundant experience, and that have worked their way up, may not need a degree at all to hold these management positions. There are also many different online courses and resources available that would assist in the improvement of sales and management knowledge and skills without the need for a university course.
Businesses might want to consider investing in their talent by further training their marketing and sales representatives by paying for further courses to better their skills.
At the end of the day, sales managers and marketing managers share many of the same characteristics such as solid leadership skills, effective communication, confidence, organisation, and an analytical mindset with attention to detail.
How Sales Managers And Marketing Managers Have To Work Together
Sales teams and marketing teams work very closely together in most businesses. The sales team should collect and analyse all sales data, and present it to the marketing team along with sales goals. From there, the marketing team can come up with marketing strategies that will help achieve these sales goals, and push certain products etc.
There should be constant and open communication between the sales manager and the marketing manager if things are to run smoothly.
Can One Person Fulfil The Role Of A Sales Manager And A Marketing Manager?
In the cases of small businesses, the sales and marketing teams are often merged as there are not enough employees for two separate teams to make sense. In these cases, usually, one manager is employed to fulfil the role of sales manager and marketing manager and to manage the sales & marketing team.
If this is something you plan to do as an employer, you should ensure that the tasks and responsibilities set out are not too much for one person to handle. When interviewing candidates for the role, it should be made exceptionally clear what the role entails and what targets and goals they’ll need to meet.
Final Thoughts
Sales and marketing managers are two distinct roles, despite the fact that they need to work closely together. Understand as a business owner that marketing managers help tell your business’ story and show the world what your identity is, but sales managers help drive sales and make your business profitable.
You can’t have one be successful without the other, so invest in your marketing and sales team to ensure your business is as successful as possible.
