http://evisionmedia.ca/marketing-vs-sales/
What comes first the chicken or the egg? Mankind has been stuck on this simple brainteaser for years. Interestingly enough, there is a similar dilemma present when it comes to making business decisions. The question here however is concerned with whether marketing or sales should come first for a new startup or product. Futurpreneur blogger Dominik Loncar, makes the argument that in order to do proper marketing, you must first sell the product. By focusing on sales first it enables a company to see what type of customer segment is interested in their product. As a result a startup will waste less money in initial advertising to a broad group, and instead have more effective advertisements following sales. However, In my opinion I think Dominik is overlooking the important effects marketing has on company growth. Without some sort of marketing the chances of a successful product launch are virtually impossible. I could have an absolutely amazing product, but without marketing to position my product in the industry I will make little to no sales. Though I do agree that sales are the best method of gaining information on target segments and room for expansion, if you don’t made any sales the information will contain little credibility. Therefore, I would support the notion of doing small amounts of marketing before releasing a new product or idea. By doing this companies will avoid the charge of major advertisement, while still getting to word out to a number of customers. Ultimately the launch would not be as big as with extreme focus on advertising, but it would allow the company to gain valuable information on how to adjust and position the product. A company can not just simply ignore all marketing, without it sales will be less than substantial and for that reason present less value.
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Marketing_vs_Sales