The title of this blog could be misleading. It’s not a fight as to who can do the best job, but how they can synergise to do a collectively fantastic job. There is a key difference between Marketing and Business Development, but by understanding each one, we can explore how well they work together.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is, quite simply, the process of a business promoting and selling a product or service. Those of us who work in business, and in particular marketing, know that this definition is a very simplistic snapshot of what is involved. The type of marketing that is required depends on many factors – but that is for another blog.
What does someone working in Marketing do?
There are many roles in marketing, ranging from highly specialist (email marketing, SEO and social media) to a more generalist role (someone who knows how to implement all aspects of marketing to get to the end goal). Essentially, marketing involves researching your target audience, identifying consumer needs, and creating strategic marketing plans to communicate with consumers and lead them through the marketing funnel.
Using marketing to build your brand, and grow your target audience is nothing if there are no firm targets in place. And this is where Business Development comes into play.
What is Business Development?
Business Development means just that. Developing the business. The key aim is to build and nurture new business opportunities and chances for growth. Again, how you do that will be dependent on a range of factors, including the nature of your business.
What does someone working in Business Development do?
Business Development involves building relationships with your target market and identifying new partnership opportunities through networking. It also involves discovering and tapping into new markets for potential customers, and building on leads that have been generated through Marketing campaigns.
Cross Over
In order to effectively grow and expand your business, it’s essential that the Marketing and Business Development strategies are linked in a way that produces better results. The Business Development team needs to be involved in developing the Marketing strategy so that it generates the best possible leads for the business. The Marketing team, on the other hand, needs to advise the Business Development team on the correct brand messaging and content in order to secure the best leads.
Although on the surface, both departments appear to have different objectives, they have the common goals of growing the business: developing brand awareness and winning new customers. Working in tandem is key.
In essence, there would be no Business Development without Marketing, and vice versa.
How can they work together?
The Marketing and Business Development departments must work together on creating your company’s communication, branding and content strategies. This will enable you to come up with marketing strategies that best resonate with the target market and are more likely to attract the right customers and generate warm leads. It also ensures consistency in brand messaging and a more cohesive overall brand presence across all marketing channels.
Ongoing communication and feedback between both teams is essential, as it will produce more reliable lead tracking. It will also ensure that all marketing campaigns are running smoothly, and that the overall business strategy is moving in the right direction.
For more information on how an effective Marketing Strategy can help your Business Development team, contact Colette Cooper on 01992 367 546 or email her at [email protected].
