PR Vs Marketing What's The Difference?

While there is a thin line between marketing and Public relations, it is important to establish a distinction when establishing a business. Although the objectives of the two often overlap, understanding the differences will enable businesses to implement the right strategy for a specific goal.
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What is Marketing?
Marketing is the activities centred on creating and promoting a particular product or service to a target market. These activities include four components of the marketing mix to aid in achieving the success of a product. The four components are

1. Product- this refers to the item, idea or service offered for sale or use.
2. Price- Refers to the value placed on that product or service. Production cost, supply and demand as well as the target market affect the price of a product.
3. Place- Location is dependent on the service or product offered. A good distribution system is important to capture the customers’ attention. The right product being distributed at the wrong place is very ineffective in promoting new business.
4. Promotion- this refers to the activities that a business employ to increase product awareness. These include word of mouth, advertising and press releases.
   
   

What is Public Relation?
Public Relations is strategy businesses use to maintaina favourable public image. Often abbreviated as “PR”, public relations is used to influence a brand’s reputation. These endorsements are not paid for but usually must be earned through positive conversations. Companies utilize PR in different methods including:

1. Affiliating with influencers- Brands use this method to spread awareness between a brand and “influencers”. Influencers spread brand awareness through media outlets like YouTube and Instagram. Influencers usually have a large following on social media can promote brands because their followers trust their opinions.

 

1. Press Releases- the purpose of a press release is to cultivate brand awareness by sharing information about your business with the hope it will be spread via word of mouth.

 

1. Community Relations – Used to maintain and establish a favourable relationship within communities they operate in. Brands can gain long term loyalty from communities they operate in when they take an active interest in said communities.

 

1. Crisis Management- A good PR strategy put measures in place to protect a brand’s public image should the need arise. Proper preparation should be used to mitigate negative brand image.

 
So, what is the difference between Marketing and Public Relations?
The primary difference between marketing and public relations is that marketing is centred around promoting products or services to increase sales and public relations is focused on sustaining a positive brand reputation and building relationship. While both concepts are integral to a business their strategies are different.
They are different in terms of:
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Target audiences
With marketing, brands focus on their potential or current customers while public relations is concerned with the general population. Marketing segments the population into smaller groups based on unique characteristics and public relations aims to influence wider society.
                                                                  Reliability and Legitimacy
Public relation is earned media as opposed to marketing which is paid media.  Earned media is what happens when rand awareness and publicity is gained through third-party endorsements such as word-of-mouth and press. The brand’s awareness is voluntarily given so a brand “earned” the mention. Paid media on the other hand is when a brand pays to promote its brand employing advertising. The message is paid for by the brand as opposed to third party endorsements.  
 
Metrics of Success
Analyzing metrics can measure if strategies undertaken are effective. The metrics of success used to determine the usefulness of marketing and public relation initiatives are also different. A few metrics marketing will focus on are:

1. Return on engagement- the added value of the connection between a brand and its potential and targeted customers.

 

1. Long-term customer value- Measures how valuable your brand is to your customer over a lifetime and not just purchase by purchase basis. You want to ensure customer lifetime value is high because even though you will constantly spend money to acquire new customers and retain existing customers, it will always be cheaper to retain customers.

 

1. Cost per lead- How cost-effective marketing campaigns are in terms of new leads. A lead refers to a person interested in your goods or services. Cost per lead provides a tangible value so brands know if they are spending the appropriate amount on acquiring new leads.

 
 

1. Incremental Sales- refers to sales as a result of a marketing campaign compared to not undertaking a marketing campaign.

 
On the other hand, the success of a Public Relations campaign measurement will look at:

1. Brand mentions- happens when someone talks about your brand online. Brand mentions are improved by interacting with followers and potential customers on social media platforms, podcast interviews and attracting more followers on social media to name a few.  It is measured by how often your brand is mentioned on social media using tools such as Google Alerts and analyzing backlinks.

 

1. Website backlinks- are links to your websites from other websites. Also known as inbound links, backlinks are important because they build page relevance with results in higher search result rankings.
2. Engagement- For PR strategies to be successful, brands need to encourage interaction. Engagement is measured on social media through likes, shares and comments which indicates how well customers interact with your brand.
3. Share of voice- is the percentage of the market a brand holds as opposed to its competitors. Share of voice provides insight into how popular your brand is compared to competitors.

 
Longevity
Marketing strategies are more concerned with the short-term tangible effects on sales. While PR assesses long term brand awareness. Perception takes time to create may not be converted into revenue for months or even years.
Even though brands need to distinguish between marketing and PR, both roles rely on each other to promote brand success. Marketing a brand without even a little PR or doing PR without even a little marketing is counterproductive. If you have a terrible product, your brand image will not be favourable to potential customers. 

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