Sales Concept
The concept of sales has been termed by Philip Kotler as sales-orientation. In this situation, instead of lack of goods, lack of customers was felt. Advertising budgets increased, sales power expanded, branding, packaging and sales promotion became important tools, and marketing research began to be used to find new ways to motivate consumers and discover markets. Following are the salient features of the selling concept
(1) According to this concept, instead of shortage of goods in the economy, there was an abundance of goods.
(2) Under this concept, advertising, sales promotion, salespeople, etc., were used to generate demand for goods.
(3) Attention was paid to increasing interest in the sale of goods of intermediaries.
(4) Marketing research was started under this concept so that cheap and good goods could be made available to the customers.
(5) Priority was given to the selection of skilled salespeople.
Marketing Concept
Philip Kotler has called the marketing concept marketing orientation. In times of rapid technological and social change, intense competition and high consumer needs, business cannot be run on profit based on sales-oriented, so business organizations are now inclined towards marketing orientation. It is worth mentioning that marketing-oriented is different from sales-oriented in many ways. The concept of sales starts with the existing products of the organization and in this, sales and promotion are done to encourage profitable sales volume. In contrast, the marketing concept is to integrate products and programs to meet the needs of existing and prospective customers of the organization and hope that the organization will make a profit by generating meaningful value satisfaction. Following are the salient features of marketing concept
(1) According to the marketing concept, marketing is given the name of business.
(2) Marketing concept considers the customer as its focal point. Therefore, the business organization has to work according to the needs of the customer.
(3) According to the marketing concept, all marketing activities should be coordinated, after that the activities of all other departments of the organization should also be coordinated with marketing activities.
(4) The organization should achieve profit and other goals only from customer satisfaction.
(5) In this, importance is given to long-term planning to sell new products in future markets.
Distinction between Selling and Marketing
Many people do not differentiate between marketing and selling. They use them as synonyms. In fact there is a difference between the two words. The term marketing has a wide meaning which includes selling. The function of selling is to reach the goods to the final consumer or the manufacturing organization, whereas the marketing process starts with the idea of manufacturing the product in the mind and from item planning to after sales services are also included. The major differences between sales and marketing are as follows
