Selling vs. Marketing, what is the difference?

1. Selling vs. Marketing, what is the difference? Starting Point Focus Means End The Selling Concept Production Products Selling and promotion Profit through sales volume The Marketing Concept Target market Customer needs Integrated marketing Profit through customer satisfaction Kotler, P., Marketing Management, Prentice Hall, 1997 A central aspect of any business plan is the marketing strategy. To develop a marketing strategy, the market and potential customers must be analysed. Marketing differs from selling in as much as marketing has a customer rather than product focus. This means that customer needs should be analysed with a view to segmenting the market on this basis. From this flows the targeting of particular segments with a segment-specific marketing mix. This positions products in the market, based on an understanding of buyer needs, attitudes and behaviour. Consider a manufacturer of simple plastic bags. The bags are cheap and undifferentiated and profit can only come through volume. In contrast a handbag, such as the Hermes Birkin bag, may cost US$ 30,000 or more. Clearly Hermes does not generate profit from selling lots of them, but Hermes makes profits from its ability to charge a very high price for a product which meets the (rather exclusive) needs of the target market.