Marketing vs public relations: What’s the difference?
The line between marketing and public relations has blurred in recent years, but there are still differences between the two. Marketing creates demand for a product or a service, while public relations builds trust with the general public and key stakeholders.
If you work in your company's marketing or public relations department, understanding their differences will help you learn how they best work together to form an effective strategic communications plan. In this article, we explain what marketing and public relations are and identify the major differences between the two.
What is marketing?
Marketing is the process of promoting and selling products or services. It involves advertising your brand and what you have to offer consumers to convert leads into customers and opportunities into sales.
For example, if your company has launched a new product, you might employ a marketing campaign where you send email newsletters to existing customers and post about discounts on your company's social media channels to attract new customers.
Here are the steps marketing professionals typically use to plan a marketing campaign:
Establish your business goals
This will provide your target, helping you stay focused on tasks and initiatives that directly align with your goals. For example, if your business goal is to increase profit margins, then you might choose to cut costs and invest in free advertising like social media management.
When a company provides a service or product, employees need to understand who their competition is to set competitive prices and develop strategies to gain customers. These strategies might define new ways to fill a need or service that hasn't been addressed by the company's competitors.
This will be the focus of your content and messaging. Once you determine your competition, it's helpful to have a tangible example of how you stand apart in an improved way. For example, this could be a lower price point or a quicker production cycle.
A buyer persona is a fictional description of your ideal customer. It's helpful to give your buyer persona as much detail as possible. For example, you might believe your ideal customer is a mother and homemaker in her 30's. However, if you also include where she lives, what kinds of movies she enjoys or where she does her grocery shopping, you can make more connections about her life and identify more opportunities to market your company to this type of buyer.
Marketing professionals find it helpful to employ several channels and platforms to amplify their efforts. This way, potential customers can interact with marketing in a variety of ways, such as through social media, search engines and digital news media. Building a comprehensive plan that reaches people with several different touchpoints can make your marketing more effective.
Assess and optimise your strategy
As you track your marketing efforts, it's helpful to note where campaigns are succeeding and where there are challenges. For example, it could be beneficial to analyse where social media engagement is at its highest and if there is a pattern between content, visuals or messaging.
What is public relations?
Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their audiences. Essentially, it is the creation and delivery of messaging that informs and persuades the public. The messaging is meant to generate publicity, promote an organization or persuade people to change their opinion or take action. For example, a typical public relations campaign might include senior leadership or key organizational leaders participating in television and radio interviews or a spokesperson offering quotes to a newspaper or magazine.
Public relations is relationship-focused. Here are some skills public relations professionals use every day:
Public relations is centred on relationships. Skills such as active listening and empathy are invaluable when working in a public relations role. If you can understand what someone is saying and communicate it back to them, it shows that you hear and understand them and helps you build trust with that person.
This skill is different from relationship building in that networking is the ability to introduce yourself to build a relationship in the future. Confidence and enthusiasm will help you introduce yourself to others effectively to build a strong network of relationships. Honesty
Professionals are more likely to work with someone they trust. If you are sincere and straightforward, it will be easier to retain working partnerships.
Successful oral communication is an important way to gain acquaintances, form relationships and motivate others. It's helpful to learn how to speak with certainty when working in a cooperative role like public relations.
Though marketing and public relations are similar, there are some distinct differences between the two. Understanding these differences can help you learn when you need one over the other. Here are some differences to consider:
is focused on products or services, while public relations is focused on the organisation at large.
supports sales and increasing revenue, and public relations supports organisational positioning.
is typically proactive, whereas public relations is usually reactive.
is often a one-way communication where the audience receives information but does not answer back, whereas public relations is a dialogue with the public.
is most effective when leveraging an existing trust with potential customers and partners, while public relations is what builds that trust in the first place.
is about creating demand, while public relations seeks to create trust and awareness.
often uses paid media efforts to accomplish goals, whereas public relations is typically free, relying on earned media like news media mentions or spotlight features from celebrities and other public figures and influencers.
typically comes after a brand or a company has been established, but public relations is employed at the beginning of the process to build the brand or company.
in its simplest form is transactional, whereas public relations is relational.
is a short-term discipline used to drive immediate purchases, while public relations is a long-term effort that may change or grow as the company moves forward.
Even though they don't have the same specific responsibilities, marketing and public relations work together in a partnership to reach overlapping objectives. Here are a few specific similarities between the two:
goal of marketing and public relations is to influence end-users to boost awareness and turn leads into customers.
as well as public relations and communication both use persuasive communication to build trust with potential customers and make products and services more attractive.
development of marketing and public relations efforts has the best interests of the company in mind.
audience for marketing and public relations messaging is the public.
The relationship between marketing and public relations is cyclical. By increasing a company's good standing with the public, marketing becomes more effective in driving sales. By increasing an organisation's sales, public relations becomes more effective through an increase in public awareness, and outlets that influence public perception are more likely to want to partner with you and spotlight your efforts.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is when advertising efforts are deployed specifically for online channels, electronic devices and web-based technologies. Here are some examples of digital marketing: media marketing video tutorials engine optimization per-click campaigns marketing
advertising
What is digital public relations?
Digital public relations is the use of digital and social technologies to manage the reputation or brand of an organization to improve its online presence. For example, a company's senior leadership might complete video interviews that are optimized for the web or make a quote in an online news media outlet about a current event related to their business.
While traditional public relations involve building a network of journalists to earn recognition in print publications, digital PR involves networking with bloggers, journalists and influencers and sending out digital press releases to gain a bigger following online.
more information or comments, please contact Institute of Public Relation & Communication Zimbabwe. Email: talkshow@iprc.co.zw or call Bridget on 0772516934 or Hope on 0775836225