Teamwork is a seemingly simple concept that is often complex to implement, especially when two functions of your business appear to be playing on separate squads. Many businesses have separate sales and marketing teams, which makes sense; your marketing contingent works toward a long-term strategy, while sales focuses on short-term acquisitions. While it’s tempting to think of these two in different color jerseys, playing their own games, it’s actually vital that they team up and play ball together.
Sales & Marketing: What’s the Difference?
In home care, we tend to lump anyone who calls on clients a “marketer”. We also tend to group anything that has to do with advertising into “marketing”. In fact, the two jobs are quite different, but ultimately complementary. Sales is the process of either building a relationship that results in a sale or actually making the sale itself. Marketing is the game plan, or strategy, that tells you who you should be selling to (your target audiences) and what you should be selling with (deliverables) to meet your target audiences’ needs. Marketing informs sales on who the targets are and gives sales the tools to market appropriately to different targets.
When it comes down to basics, marketing works to generate more leads that sales can call on, much like a setter on a volleyball team who sets the ball so his teammate can spike it.
Marketing is made up of several areas of expertise, including:
- Strategy – What are you selling? To whom? How? Where?
- Engagement – How do you interact with your audiences? Do you understand the differing levels of engagement that home care buyers go through? Do you understand what different types of referrers need from you?
- Public relations – Are you building a reputation as an expert in aging care services? Do you tell the stories about your company that resonate most with buyers and referrers?
- Content creation – Are you creating content that educates, informs, entertains, consoles and is helpful and relevant? Does your content reflect the warmth and personality of your aging care business? Do you know where your content should go?
- Social media marketing – What are the best types of posts to put up in social media for aging care businesses? What is post boosting? How does social media affect website visits and conversions?
- Professional design, online and in print – Impressions are made in mere seconds. Quality design says quality agency. Poor design says the opposite.
- Search engine optimization – Do you know the best way to raise the visibility of your website so that people searching for aging care services find you instead of your many competitors?
- Reputation management – Like it or not, your company already has an online reputation. Do you know how to manage it so that it helps your business?
Marketing helps you attract and persuade consumers and referrers. Sales understands what makes a qualified lead and follows up with the marketing methods developed to influence the sale.
How to Get Marketing & Sales Staff on the Same Team
In order to get your sales and marketing departments playing ball together, your agency must understand one key idea: marketing and sales is the duty of everyone in the organization! Everyone on your team must be aware of who your target audience is, your agency’s messaging, what your elevator speech is when pitching your agency to potential clients, how your agency is branded, and how your agency presents itself as a way to meet the clients’ needs.
If you missed our latest webinar on this topic, click here for an in-depth look into the basics of sales and marketing and how to make them work together for greater success.
Marketing home care is different than marketing other products or services, so ensuring that sales and marketing staff are true teammates is key to gaining more leads and closing more sales. If your agency needs a marketing partner that knows the aging care industry and how to work with sales, contact the corecubed team today!