Why do most companies see marketing professionals as salesmen and ignore the real marketing aspect of their job?

Unfortunately, for the majority of companies around the globe they mix marketing with promotion, so for them all the marketing activities are around making leaflets, catalogues, company runaways and maybe a yearly calender, and for the rest of the year it is better to use the marketing personnel as sales men without giving the title of sales men so that the client is not intimidated, Marketing is the “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.
The aim is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits.....and sells itself” (Drucker P, 1954) Employers have to realise the true power of marketing and how proper market research can save the money time, efforts and money along with giving the organisation a strategic insight on the market trends, projections and the direction the company should adapt to achieve competitive advantage over its competitors, I hope my answer was helpful

Let me give you a short answer, My Good Friend: That is because the employee is really a "product pusher (salesman)", not the "marketing professional".
A marketing professional will not take a route to sell potato bags.
He would rather create market for multiple salesmen throughout the region.

first reason is that the company has a product that has a very short life cycle.

the other possible reason is that a company has  a new invention item that is needed by consumers.

third is that the company lacks the understanding of  basic marketing

First, it's because there is a very thin line between a marketing professional and a salesman.
In fact, these two terms can be used interchangeably at times.
Second, most marketing people, especially in the past few decades, usually did more selling than making campaign strategies.
Besides, it was the time of hard selling then.
But, I believe that more people are now getting more open-minded to this issue.

Because, unfortunately, they consider Marketing as a cost center and not as investment!

One reason for a company to see its marketers as salesmen could be that such a company is still in its nascent stage where both functions Marketing and Sales have not developed to the optimum extent.
The size of such a company and its market reach are probably not significant compared to other players in the market.
Definitely such companies are not in the top few performers category.
Its perhaps because such managements lack clear of understanding of the important functions Marketing & Sales Many think that marketing and Sales functions are one and the same.
Let us define these two functions Marketing is finding out what people want, why they want it and how much they’ll spend.
Don't confuse marketing with advertising.
Sales is sales! It's converting an inquiry or lead into a contract or shipment.
Sales is not market research, business development or advertising.
Marketing is everything that an organization does to reach and persuade prospects.
The sales process is everything that it does to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract.
Both are necessities to the success of a business.
One cannot do without either process.
By strategically combining both efforts an organization will experience a successful amount of business growth.
However, by the same token if the efforts are unbalanced it can detour your growth.
marketing will consists of the measures to reach out to and persuade prospects that you are the company for them.
It's the message that prepares the prospect for the sales.
It consists of advertising, public relations, brand marketing, viral marketing, and direct mail.
The sales process consists of interpersonal interaction.
It is often done by a one-on-one meeting, cold calls, and networking.
It's anything that engages you with the prospect or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance.
Your marketing efforts begin the process of the eight contacts that studies show it takes to move a prospect or potential client to the close of the sale.
If marketing is done effectively you can begin to move that prospect from a cold to a warm lead.
When the prospect hits the "warm" level it's much easier for the sales professional to close the sale.

Well, the simplest answer would be that marketing is less tangible compared to sales.
Marketing aims at improving the image of the brand and most of the marketing activities will not yield solid results(apart from generating a few sales leads).
Return on Investment for a marketing/branding activity is very difficult to calculate.
At the same time, sales is a very tangible and measurable activity where the performance of a sales executive can be directly measured in terms of the revenue bought into the company by him/her.
Hence a sales executive can clearly highlight his achievement even in a short period of time whereas a marketing executive will find it difficult to do so.
Hence Sales automatically gains precedence over Marketing in most organizations.
Most organizations forget the fact that Sales and Marketing have to work in tandem to achieve the desired results.
Also, marketing executives are often criticized for the very same aspects for not bringing in enough revenue to the organization.
The intangible aspects like brand building, brand loyalty etc.
cannot be easily measured and they often have to bear the brunt of the management for not yielding the desired results.
This same principle is often used for reducing the marketing budgets and in fact, downsizing the marketing team is often the first step used to reduce costs in many organizations.

Most of the companies have their own marketing plans and strategies and the role of marketing executives is to implement them.
I feel mostly the performance of an executive is measured in terms of the business secured and not on the overall marketing efforts.

In today's business world , there are only two types of company : Marketing - minded companies and Sales-minded companies And there is huge difference in between them . If you are a marketing professional  working in a sales-minded company , then you are in a big trouble . You will have to train your company , try to explain the main differences and this will absolutely demotivate you . Marketing Management is a very complex science and a marketing professional is not a teacher or academician . Genuine marketing and brand management professional should choose the company to work for very very carefully . 

Unfortunately There are a misunderstanding between the marketing and promoting duties, especially in Arab societies Many are thinking that the promoting job is same as the marketing, while the marketing is an administrative statistical and technical job depends on a strategies and techniques that are different than the promoting job which depends on Skills, behavior and the ability to define the Product to the customer

 

The marketing position always is higher than the promoting one

 

So there must be a detailed organizational chart available in the industry with a detailed jobs description to omit this misunderstanding

 

With informing the staff and let them understand the difference between the two positions

Without marketing you would not have measures to follow up with, but yet without a good sales technique and strategy your closing rate may depress you.
That's why most of the Companies sees that Marketing Professionals are the Sales People as what they are looking forward to is The Profit without looking on the whole Picture that No profit will be done without materials and that sales teams getting materials from the marketing department.
Therefor Its a closed Cycle , Both are necessities to the success of a business.
You cannot do without either process.