Which actions to choose – marketing or PR? How to differentiate which actions are more from the marketing field and which are from the field of public relations? What are the differences and do they have unrelated purposes?
Marketing communication is a set of actions that are to satisfy Customers’ needs. In other words, they are to lead to the selling of products and/or services. Promotion and advertising are just two of the actions we can consider “marketing”. What are the rest?
- marketing research and analysis – carrying out tests, surveys, observations or internet analysis can lead you to the source of useful information. This is how the brand learns about the Customers’ preferences, the motivation of their purchase and the shopping path
- product development – optimisation and changes in the offer to answer the customers’ needs as closely as possible
- product distribution – the purpose of marketing is also the optimisation of distribution channels of the product, extraction of retail and wholesale markets
- pricing policy – to remain competitive, as a? company you need to constantly optimise the prices of any goods that seem to be effective on the Client and generate an income to your company.
PR is one of the parts of widely understood marketing. The purpose of actions of Public Relations can be:
- building the brand image – a long-term strategy of publishing content, for example via Social Media, that leads to the strengthening of a brand's image. It’s a type of communication set on a dialogue and non-sales content (for example, it can be often connected to charity)
- building relationship with Customers – when it comes to building relationship with Customers, the point is to give credibility to the brand and build its authenticity in the relation between the brand and the Client. This should occur by posting some other types of content, the non-sales one – these are often more focused on a dialogue.
- media relations –that includes the media, the press and events, maintaining good relations with the media by providing them with important information and by conscious management of the information given – that means informing at the right time, in the right form and according to the company’s strategy.
- sponsorship – sponsoring particular events allows to build the brand’s image within the context of its values and in the area of a certain target group.
- corporate social responsibility – at the time of increased Consumer’s awareness and loud discussion about the environmental impact of the organisations and general well being of the planet – the CSR is particularly important. Not only as a representative or display model but, above all, as a movement to actually care for the common good. This subject contains all of the ecological aspects.
There is no clear answer to the question asked above. While creating the plan of communication you should take the main objective of your brand into account.?
Both marketing and public relations are to take care of the company’s well-being and they equally assume a long-term action plan. However, the main differences between them are:
- objectives – marketing focuses on selling the products and services, public relations is more focused on building relations with Clients.
- area – in the case of marketing there is a lot more communication directed “outside”. Public relations, on the other hand, assumes communication both outside and inside (that also includes investors).
If only the company’s budget allows for it, it’s good to run these activities in parallel and that’s because they’re both a great complement to the marketing communication conducted by the brand. Otherwise you’ll need to decide which objective is more important for your company at the moment. It’s also better when any action taken is a part of previously prepared company’s strategy. The key elements here are: the plan and thoroughly prepared publications and content.??
