Sales departments tend to believe that marketers are out of touch with what's really going on in the marketplace. Marketing people, in turn, believe the sales force is myopic--too focused on individual customer experiences, insufficiently aware of the larger market, and blind to the future. In short, each group undervalues the other's contributions. Both stumble (and organizational performance suffers) when they are out of sync. Yet, few firms seem to make serious overtures toward analyzing and enhancing the relationship between these two critical functions. Curious about the misalignment between Sales and Marketing, the authors interviewed pairs of chief marketing officers and sales vice-presidents to capture their perspectives. They looked in depth at the relationship between Sales and Marketing in a variety of companies in different industries. Their goal was to identify best practices that could enhance the joint performance and increase the contributions of these two functions. Among their findings: The marketing function takes different forms in different companies at different product life cycle stages. Marketing's increasing influence in each phase of an organization's growth profoundly affects its relationship with Sales. The strains between Sales and Marketing fall into two main categories: economic (a single budget is typically divided between Sales and Marketing, and not always evenly) and cultural (the two functions attract very different types of people who achieve success by spending their time in very different ways). In this article, the authors describe the four types of relationships Sales and Marketing typically exhibit. They provide a diagnostic to help readers assess their companies' level of integration, and they offer recommendations for more closely aligning the two functions.

The nonprofit performing arts industry in America, along with many performing arts organizations around the world, are facing crises on a variety of fronts. Accordingly, arts organizations must learn new ways to attract the resources they need to sustain their mission and quality. Arts managers must improve their skills in increasing and broadening their audience base, improving accessibility to various art forms, and learning how to better meet the needs of specific audience segments and contributors. To accomplish this, they must develop a better understanding of their own business and of the interests, attitudes, and motivations of their customers. They must professionalize their marketing and management skills and learn to be accountable to all their publics: their artists, their funders, and their audiences. Then they can create offerings, services, and messages to which the target audience will enthusiastically respond, without compromising their artistic integrity.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, the nonprofit performing-arts industry in the United States enjoyed unprecedented growth. But in recent years, the arts have been hard hit by shrinking audiences, rising debt, and cuts in government funding. Can arts organizations succeed in this environment and fulfill their own special mission? The authors have observed one way in which they can succeed: through strategic collaborations--intensive, durable commmitments created for mutual gain.

Because of the growing number of domestic and international markets blocked by high entry barriers, companies need to master the art of favorably influencing parties other than target consumers. In addition to the four Ps of marketing strategy - product, price, place, and promotion - executives must add power and public relations. Megamarketing is the strategically coordinated application of economic, psychological, political, and public relations skills to gain the cooperation of a number of parties in order to enter and/or operate in a given market.

U.S. companies confuse marketing effectiveness with sales effectiveness. Executives determine whether an organization understands and practices marketing by conducting a marketing effectiveness audit. The audit rates marketing effectiveness in each of five major functions: customer philosophy, integrated marketing organization, adequate marketing information, strategic orientation, and operational efficiency. The resulting score tells where the organization falls on a scale ranging from no marketing effectiveness to superior effectiveness.

Despite the benefit of high profits, as well as the enjoyment of a position of leadership, a company that has a high market share is a tempting target for actual and potential competitors, consumer organizations and government agencies. Market-share management involves the determination of optimal market share in a given product/market. To achieve or maintain this optimum share, recommended marketing strategies include: sharebuilding, share maintenance, share reduction, and risk reduction.