What are the key differences between marketing, sales and customer experience?

Tools & Resources

Key learnings

Ensure a seamless transition from attracting customers (marketing) to closing deals (sales) and delivering a great experience (customer experience (CX)) to build loyalty.
Understand customer needs, remove barriers to purchase, and gather feedback to improve products, services, and interactions.
Maintain a strong brand experience across marketing, sales, and post-purchase interactions, even when using third-party distributors or service providers.

Marketing, sales, and customer experience (CX) activities are essential for attracting, converting, and retaining customers. They often overlap and complement each other, which can lead to terms being used interchangeably. In this article, we explain what the different roles are. They all have an important part to play in helping you to win more customers and build loyalty.

What is marketing?

Marketing enables you to create, distribute and promote products and services that meet the needs of a target audience while being profitable for your business.

Understanding the customer and competition through conducting market and customer research is a key aspect that allows you to make decisions on products/services, pricing, distribution channels and promotion.

The focus is on understanding what customers want, what they are willing to pay for it, how you can differentiate yourself from the competition, and how you are performing.

However, it is promotion that most people think about when they talk about marketing – getting your business noticed and enticing a potential customer to consider buying your product or service.

Marketing activities include:

Market and customer research
Creating a marketing strategy that outlines how you will reach and engage the target audience
Developing clear, engaging messaging and a strong brand
Continuous creation and sharing of content and engaging with your audience through marketing channels (eg social media, PR, advertising) to raise awareness of your organisation, products and services and promote loyalty
Devising campaigns that focus on a special promotion to boost sales of a particular product or service
Measuring the performance of marketing activities

What is sales?

Sales integrates with marketing as the audience becomes aware of your brand and someone wants to learn more.

Some businesses have a separate sales function and team, particularly if they are selling more complex products or services such as cars, furniture, software, or professional services. Sales activities aim to move the customer through the final stages to a sale by answering questions, advising and persuading.

It is therefore important when putting your sales hat on or training your staff to undertake this role, that you thoroughly understand the features and benefits of your products and services. You need to be good at listening to customer or client challenges and identifying which solutions will be suitable within their budget. Negotiation skills and being able to identify opportunities to add value are also important.

Sales activities may involve:

Qualifying leads so you focus on the ones most likely to convert to sales
Running demonstrations or providing discovery calls
Answering questions about your business, products or services
Looking for opportunities to cross-sell and upsell
Pitching your business through tenders, presentations and negotiating contracts
Managing relationships with clients or customers over time

What’s the difference between marketing and sales?

As mentioned, marketing and sales are often intertwined, and the terms get used interchangeably. In a micro business it’s likely you wear both hats and move between them seamlessly.

Marketing focuses on reaching, engaging and convincing a prospective customer to consider buying your product or service. It is underpinned by research that informs product and service development, with the aim of making you the most attractive choice and winning the customer’s interest over competitors.

Sales takes over when an individual or organisation signals their interest in buying from you, and they become a lead. You nurture and manage the relationship, understanding their challenges, suggesting and tailoring potential solutions, negotiating terms and overcoming objections to convert the lead to a sale.

What is customer experience?

The terms user experience, consumer or customer experience and customer service are often used interchangeably, which can be confusing.

Customer experience (CX) is the customer’s entire experience or journey with your company from first impressions to consuming your product or service. It may also include a separate consumer – for example if the customer bought a gift for someone else, or a beneficiary if using a ‘buy one give one’ social enterprise model.

It includes all your sales and marketing activities, plus the customer’s post-purchase experience:

Confirming the purchase and communicating next steps
Making arrangements for the delivery of the product or service
Delivering the product or service – including managing any third parties
Answering customer questions and troubleshooting problems
Communicating regularly to manage expectations and ensure satisfaction
Gathering feedback and handling complaints if needed
Handling returns and organising refunds
Referring existing customers or clients back to sales for further purchase

User experience (UX) usually refers to a specific product or service, such as your company’s website, an app, or software. Its focus is on ensuring that a user can complete the processes they set out to do with as little friction as possible. It therefore contributes to a positive overall customer experience.

Why is the customer experience important?

The challenge for businesses is to ensure that throughout all interactions, the customer has a consistent and positive experience of your brand.

Thinking about the customer journey can be helpful, allowing you to anticipate needs and deliver an excellent experience that fosters loyalty and repeat business.

Getting feedback on the customer experience from people who bought from you, as well as people who didn’t, can also be valuable.

Keep in mind that if you use a distributor - for example a retailer – some parts of the customer experience will be handled by someone else. You may also use a third party to deliver your products. However, the customer’s experience will still reflect on your brand, so you need good relationships with your supply chain to ensure your brand values are upheld.

Next steps…

Learn more about customer experience and customer journey mapping.
If you’re an UMi Sat Nav subscriber, check out our webinars on winning more customers and improving your sales and get useful templates to help you take action on your learning.
If you’re starting a business, think about how you will guide your customer from awareness to consuming your product or service, and how you can keep them engaged afterwards.
If you’re established already, consider what improvements you could make to strengthen branding, refine sales strategies, and enhance post-purchase experiences to create a seamless, customer-focused approach.