Marketing vs. Sales

What's the worst hire you can imagine? To me it is hiring a sales guy to run a marketing department. Running a group of marketeers by holding sales numbers in front of them every single day might work in a call-center setting. But it kills the more strategic, relationship and story telling initiatives that marketing people thrive upon.

I recently experienced first hand what can happen to a marketing team when this type of mismatch becomes reality. It has led me to further analyze the opposite dimensions between Sales and Marketing strategies and their associated tactics. Why exactly are they opposites of something that companies need both in equal amounts. The results for now is the MASA - Marketing Sales - Framework. The reason why I developed this framework is to understand better how mobile e.g. would fit into today's marketing & sales activities. 

The MASA Framework in words
When looking for opposites in approach between marketing and sales I quickly got to the a list of interesting dimensions but let's first start by making clear what marketing is.


Marketing Marketing in the classic sense is about targeting your customer with the right price for the right product at the right moment at the right place. Sales is about facilitating the actual delivery and the final transactions, i.e. getting paid for what your products and services on offer.
But how does that map out in the strategic sense? Here are the opposites that should make that clear.


Individual vs. Mass
In an ideal world your product or service is delivered at the right time, place, price and location for EACH of your customers. In reality we have to take a couple of short cuts and assumptions to make that a cost effective process. 
In Sales the objective is to sell as much as you can to as many people as you can. 


Pull vs. Pull
From individual to Mass it is a small step to Pull vs. Push. if you're product is really needed the clients will find you and pull your services or products towards them. In Sales the assumption is to push the message through as many channels as you can. The word Spam comes to mind.


Pricing vs. Branding
When you're brand does not justify a premium pricing is quickly the other argument to convince clients to buy. This is clearly what's happening to Nokia smart phones in many countries. Although feature wise and from a cost perspective these phones are comparable to iPhones and most Android devices, they often sell for ridiculously low prices. The Nokia brand has lost its mojo and a sales strategy is put in place to save the bottom line. 


Reach vs. Targeted
Sales is about reaching your audience in as many places with a standardized message. Marketing is as per the Individual vs. Mass approach, more about optimizing your products for your consumer's desires or the other way around (think iPad), creating a need that nobody had before and filling it in at the same time with the right product or service. Targeting in this setting goes beyond segmentation. It is more about timing and location and about understanding your client from a use-case perspective.


The MASA Framework
I created the the following graphic to illustrate the MASA Framework. It serves also as a way to classify the various communication channels that both Sales & Marketing teams use to execute their strategies. 

How MASA can be useful


When putting this framework in front of clients, the first reaction often is; 'well that springs no surprises'. I think that's fine because it serves as a tool to connect the dots between e.g. a companies mission statement and its current Marketing & Sales strategy.
Here are a few examples.


Mission Statement
If you are in the business of selling health products to consumers you definitely need to have a Sales strategy. But if your Missions Statement says you want to become the trusted advisor that people turn to to improve their health you seriously need a marketing strategy. Connecting both to the Mission Statement becomes easier using the MASA framework. It is easier to combine Mass Advertisement and Pricing strategies with building up a reputation as a health advisor. Using the framework in discussions with a client we quickly identified opportunities by reshuffling tasks among existing resources and introducing new elements on the website. 
In a later stage the development of an advisor application for iPhone and Android is in the planning. The app will not only be a source of information but it will drive sales by serving up targeted products to users with a certain profile only. We're still debating if that would imply a price reduction but by looking at the balance between marketing and sales and the expected move upwards in image the pricing becomes a less important topic and serving up a good quality product with good references becomes more important all of a sudden.


Hiring the right people
Discussing the current marketing and strategy plan using the MASA framework will help you to understand whether you're dealing with a sales-guy trying to polish up his image in an interview by presenting himself as a marketing expert, or the other way around.


Fitting mobile into the mix
As Maarten Albarda VP of Global Connections at InBev said at DeMexCo "The future is mobile, and nobody has really cracked that yet. Is it just another screen for distribution or is it more than that?"
The MASA framework can help finding the best way to integrate Mobile as both a Marketing and Sales tool into your business. You will quickly understand whether it has value by serving as a loyalty channel or tool. As a marketing director you may have wondered about the value of a mobile site. By looking at the Reach versus Targeting and Pull vs Push aspects it might be clear that a mobile site should be more personal and should be based on a Pull mechanism more that a standard website.


Understanding the Luxury Business
In the luxury business the acquisition of a product is often the result of a long preparation process in which the client dances around the brand, touching it through various channels to then time the ultimate moment of buying himself into the brand's reality when he or she is ready. It is here where Sales are almost a no-fly zone. Mass advertising, selling on Price and Pushing the product to the market is unthinkable. So if Mobile is going to be added to the Marketing mix it should be about Pull, Targeting, Individual tactics supporting the Brand. Now while this seems a no-brainer, with the MASA framework it will be easier to take a decision e.g. about m-commerce, i.e. direct sales of your luxury products.


Aligning Marketing with Sales
The model can provide the basis for an alignment between Marketing and Sales. By understanding the differences in objectives and better mapping out the ownership of advertising versus social and narrowcasting versus campaigning the necessary alignment between both departments can be managed better.




The state of MASA
The MASA framework is still work in progress. I am looking at refining the dimensions and the 'Umfeld', i.e. the Advertising, Campaigning, Social Media and Narrowcasting part.
I'd be happy to see feedback from your side and start a discussion.




For further reading
Marketing Week - Brand guardians can bridge great divide
Marketing Insider - How to Align Marketing with-Sales

Harvard Business Review - The new Path to the C-suite

> Specifically the section about the Chief Marketing and Chief Sales Officer.

Do Mobile Marketing Agencies have a Future?

I had a really good lunch meeting with a great full service marketing agency the other day. The COO asked at some point whether channel oriented marketing agencies, such as mobile marketing agencies actually, have a future. Here is more or less what I answered.

Hybrid vs. Channel marketing

Where it was still cool last year to be or to work for a cutting edge innovative mobile marketing agency, this year the opinions are shifting rapidly. It is clear by now that offering specific mobile applications and site development services provide a certain value add but that from a marketing strategy perspective it is important to offer a broader range of services. It is also clear by now that mobile agencies are struggling. They reach a reasonable size 100 to 200 people with some form of a global presence. But from there growth seems to stall.

The problem in my opinion is that mobile can only to some extent be delivered as a stand alone channel. In traditional ATL marketing has been separated from digital or BTL marketing. A bunch of agencies have popped-up over the last 2 decades boasting a comprehensive 360º service or what I would call hybrid marketing. But none of these agencies have reached the size of the global players like DDB-Tribal, Wunderman or Ogilvy. 

Why is this? The eye-opener for me was one simple question asked by a client during a meeting. During this meeting we tried to convince them that a mobile site was an absolute necessity for the brand. If they really wanted to be present in the best way possible on all mobile devices than they would certainly need our mobile site and hosting platform.

The client simply asked; if you think that a mobile site is so important, can you also provide us with a site and platform solution that:

- Covers our marketing needs for both 'classic' online websites for PC's 

- Proposes an optimized experience for iPad and mobile phones with a focus on smart phones and...

- Facilitating the management of this 'hybrid' website from one single CMS

Although I would have loved to say yes at that point, the actual answer I had to give was of course, no we can't. We can deliver a parallel mobile site experience. In a best case scenario and provided you're willing to pay for the additional effort we can provide you with a site that is connected to your 'classic' site. We maybe able to leverage some of the classic online content but in reality it will require additional resources and workflows to optimize the content and use it via the mobile channel.

In short the client was asking for a more holistic approach that a mobile agency just can't provide. Today I must conclude that just a few agencies are able to deliver a full hybrid approach, including a well-judged creative use of the mobile channel.

Traditional and Digital

I haven't even started to discuss how to combine the traditional marketing channels and digital. There are beautiful examples and case studies of how social, mobile, print, tv and web were put to work for brands. Yet these examples remain few and far between since not many agencies are able to cover the full spectrum. A great many agencies and brands are still struggling with Facebook integration and twitter management. 

So where's the opportunity for mobile?

Mobile is no doubt the channel that will be more and more the first and most often used touch point with a brand. Then again it has its specific use and quirks, specifically when it comes to personalization and brand relationship. This element needs to be combined with the use-case aspects of all the other channels. A large number of attempts to combine web, print, tv and mobile  perspective have been taken already, the most interesting models being based on a use-case based strategy. Bottom line is that agencies can't get away with being 'just digital' or 'just classic' any longer. A full integrated hybrid approach is required. The impact on agencies are potentially significant since it requires a broader set of skills under one roof which may be difficult to manage from a supply and demand perspective in today's fast moving and volatile market. There are a few ways of coping with this volatility. One is to scale-up the agency services across borders and to have a workforce that is international and multi-cultural. Another one is to have solid but flexible parternship engagement with suppliers of specific services.

What all of this implies though is:

- Agencies need resources that are flexible, have a broad range of knowledge that runs from design to technology and from classic print to digital, including social media.

- Agencies need to considers strategies that allow full hybrid marketing services with in-house resources or via a network of freelancers or partners.

- Mobile is going to be more important than web, provided that we include tablets in the definition of the mobile channel.

- Agile responses to client needs with an ability to work with both marketing and IT departments on the client side - across al the marketing channels - are becoming more important than ever.

Questions or comments? I look forward to hearing from you!

For further reading:

The Full Service Agency Model is Dead - Meet the Connectors

by Craig Wilson.