Marketers use sales strategies and sales tactics in order to get
consumers to buy a product or service. These two tools go hand-in-hand,
but are distinct. To be successful and keep a company competitive,
marketers must know the difference between these tools because their
distinction affects the order of marketing operations and the people who
carry out specific tasks.
ales Strategy Defined
A
sales strategy is a game plan for how you market what you wish to sell.
It is the concept you have of how you will achieve defined marketing
goals and clarifies the objective and purpose of what you do. A sales
strategy always answers the questions "what for?" or "what if?" Another
way of defining a sales strategy is as the content for the marketing.
Components of a strategy include items such as knowledge of your brand's
history and the consumer market, how the marketing will influence your
business overall, what the competition is doing, and the strengths and
weaknesses the plan and the product or service involved has.
Sales Tactic Defined
A
sales tactic is any action you take to put your sales strategy into
action. It is how you deliver your message to consumers. For example,
creating business brochures or a website and generating leads are
tactics. Whereas strategy explains your purpose, tactics show the
process you use to move forward. When most people talk about marketing,
they often are referencing the tactical, or action, part of the entire
marketing system.
People Involved
Because a
strategy rather than tactics defines objectives and the direction the
company will take for sales, usually a marketing director comes up with
the general marketing strategy, although any member of a marketing team
can come up with a good idea management accepts. Sales tactics, however,
are individual actions and therefore can involve many people. For
example, to put out a brochure, a company might have to hire a graphic
designer and copywriter to produce and lay out the document. These
people usually are not members of management and instead take their
direction from directors or supervisors.
Importance
Overall,
a sales strategy is more important than the individual tactics a sales
marketer uses. The primary reason is that actions taken without purpose
or objective are extremely hard to justify, especially to investors and
lenders who are providing the funds for the marketing campaign. The
objective or purpose also dictates the specific words or images the
marketing team directs at the consumer, so marketers cannot formulate
and execute tactics well until they know what the strategy is. An
excellent strategy can succeed and generate sales even if the tactics
marketers take are so-so, but excellent tactics supporting a poor
strategy often do not help a company.
