We’re often asked what the difference between Public Relations and Marketing is.
To me, the answer is simple: money.
More specifically, the differences can be found in what your hard earned dollars get you. Despite what you sometimes read, marketing and PR should never be in competition with each other. Both offer unique approaches to getting the same job done: increasing public awareness about your business and its offerings. The real contrast is in the methods both groups use to accomplish this.
Marketing
No matter the size of the business, the responsibilities of a marketing department can always be condensed to one vital role: helping the company drive sales. There are an ever-growing number of ways to accomplish this:
- Print advertising (newspaper, magazine and journal ads)
- Online advertising (banner ads, sidebar ads, popup ads)
- Email blasts (to both targeted potential customers and the general public)
- Social media campaigns (you’ve noticed the increase in “Sponsored Posts” in all your feeds, right?)
- Radio (both terrestrial and satellite have proven fertile grounds, and one has yet to kill the other)
- Television (always handy for mass marketing)
- Sponsorship and exhibition at trade events (“Can I scan your badge?”)
- Even direct mail (companies will cease to send us junk mail once the approach becomes unprofitable, and given that it has survived in both the digital and mobile age……that day may never come).
There’s no shortage in opportunities to spend a marketing budget, which is why Marketing Directors who are tapped into your industry and the advertising trends that drive sales best are worth their weight in gold.
Public Relations
These are all great tools, but they lack one of the most fundamental features that only PR can provide: Credibility.
Both marketing and PR campaigns are designed to help your business stand out in a crowd. Marketing often focuses on exposure (companies would love for you to see their logo on every television, computer, magazine page and tee shirt) and promoting unique product or service features. Fortunately, (for all of us who work outside of marketing) even the largest corporations can’t demand our attention all of the time. Marketplaces have become saturated and in a world where everyone is now special, no one is truly unique (according to ad copy, every product is the “newest, best-of-breed, utilizes cutting edge technology and is eco-friendly”).
Thought Leadership
This is where thought leadership comes in: it’s the positive attention your business is looking for which can never be bought. This is why it’s so valuable.
There are a variety of ways to become a thought leader—winning awards, public speaking, and networking with influential players. However, from a PR standpoint, becoming published in industry-outlets is one of the most effective ways to become a respected voice in your field.
Editorial opportunities in these magazines and online news sites cannot be purchased, which is why readers seek them. They like to learn more and become better at their jobs without having to deal with biases toward a specific company or product. Because of this, editors are quick to filter out marketing professionals and the boisterous, promotional language they use. Experienced PR firms have the relationships with these publications necessary to identify an opportunity, facilitate the process, and provide content guidance to help ensure that you will get published.
Positioning your business or an individual within it as a thought leader on your industry is often the differentiator for your customers.
How It Works
Let’s take an example to better understand how this type of thought leadership works—an individual is looking to buy 100 widgets for their company in the short-term, the success of which could lead to a fruitful long-term relationship. Thanks to marketing, they remember the name of several vendors and begin the research process. Unsurprisingly, the top five companies offer similar products. They all make compelling cases, purport to be the best on the market, and have similar price points. It’s a tough decision.
However, from both their research and recreational professional reading, our buyer remembers that one of the engineers at a particular company has written several articles across a variety of publications on the science behind their product and other topics within the shared industry. These aren’t advertorials, which any savvy customer can spot from a mile away, but interesting feature columns that show that the engineer (and by extension his company) have a firm grasp on the science and methodologies relevant to their business. In what becomes a happy ending (of course), our buyer chooses to purchase the widgets from the company that is positioned as an authority in their field—positioning that can only come from thought leadership.
Everyone Wins
This is just one example of how a company’s marketing department and PR firm can work together in a mutually beneficial partnership. Marketing created the brand awareness and made a lasting impression of the product’s benefits. PR helped the company establish itself as a leading player in the industry that knows what they’re talking about. Because they both did their job effectively, everyone wins.
Brendon Stellman authors the column “Pure BS” and is Vice President, Director of Client Relations for Milldam Public Relations.
