Sharon's Marketing Missive

Does your business have a sales or a marketing mentality?

I’m asking because it’s heavy on my mind and, although I think I sensed there was a difference, it wasn’t until this week that I realized how different the two mentalities are. And don't think I'm going to say the sales one is better. I'm not.

This thinking was prompted by an eye-opening conversation with the marketing person for a company I’ve worked for in the past. I was their website copywriter for a much-needed website revamp. I was happy with what we accomplished, and I expected more online marketing to follow suit after this initial project. 

But none did.

I kind of pushed them with occasional emails hinting at and asking about potential online content marketing they could be doing. Now when I say “pushed,” that’s a relative term. I’m not a pushy person. :-) So my suggestions to them were likely easy to ignore.

After leading a highly successful panel on content marketing at a Seattle marketing conference, I thought enough is enough. It’s time to get these folks doing some online content marketing. “It’s a perfect fit for them,” I thought. “Surely they’ll see the need for this and the ease of it.” 

Alas, I had overlooked one critical factor, one that hadn’t even occurred to me before. This company has a sales mentality, not a marketing mentality. You might be asking, “So what? I mean, the point is sales, right? So what’s wrong with a sales mentality?”

It leaves out an entire potential market.

Here’s what it looks like: A company with a sales mentality has a sales staff, not a marketing staff. They zero in on certain companies and individuals. They wear blinders as they work to get the attention of these highly desirable prospects…who aren’t really prospects, meaning they haven’t expressed any interest. At all. A company with a sales mentality invests all their time, effort and therefore financial resources into the manual labor of pursuing these elite businesses they want to woo and convert to customers.

Here’s why this is a problem: While the company with the sales mentality has a laser focus on say the 100 ideal customers they’d love to win, another 100, nay 1,000, potential customers are actively seeking a solution to a problem…a problem this company could solve. But they don’t find out about this company. They use a search engine and get a page of results and this company isn’t one of them. So they spend their money with someone else, one of the someone elses that did show up in the search results.

And the company with the marketing mentality? They are making themselves known to everyone out there looking by using content marketing such as keyword-rich websites, blogs and other content they create and share online. When someone goes looking for a solution to their problem, this company shows up in the search results. And when the possible prospect clicks on the link and goes to this company’s website or blog, they find engaging, relevant content that says to them, “Yes, we can help you solve your problem.” The company with the marketing mentality invests time, effort and therefore financial resources in content that will continue working for them day after day after day. They create it once, and reap the benefits of it repeatedly. They expose themselves to a whole big audience of potential customers. And the sales staff? Their time is spent closing, not pursuing.

What kind of mentality does your company have?