[Brazzell Marketing]

Business owners often think of sales and marketing as one thing. Understanding the difference between sales and marketing can help managers create more effective business plans. Sales is one important component of marketing. However, using sales as if it were 90% of marketing creates situations where businesses get less than the maximum return on their marketing investment. This also makes it much harder for salespeople to be effective in the field.

Marketing is the entire process of discovering the needs and wants of your customers (the referral sources), communicating internally to create offerings that address the needs of the customer, and communicating the value of your offer to your customers. When it comes to the last part, communicating your value to your customer, you have sales (“home health marketers”), advertising, public relations, viral marketing, and other possible avenues. Home health marketers usually ranks as the single most expensive impression you can make on a doctor or case manager. Newsletters, advertising in specialized journals, postcards, reminder items, etc. can cost up to $2 per impression. Even a sales rep who sees 300 referral sources per month easily costs $10 per impression.

Ideally, the salesperson / home health marketer gets to focus his or her efforts on the hardest part of the sales process, closing the sale. “Closing the sale” means giving a prospect the last little push he needs to commit to a transaction (i.e. start referring the patients you want). Many small businesses also use the home health marketer to build name recognition, work towards top of mind awareness, position the agency against the competition, educate referral sources, and build credibility. Managers need to keep in mind that they can accomplish these last five objectives with other, less expensive marketing methods (i.e. advertising).

More on this subject here: Sales vs. Marketing | BMA ADVisor


How does your HME company support its salespeople/marketers?