The thin line between Public Relations and Marcomms today

There was a time when Public Relations (PR) operated separately from marcomms.

Although the main aim for PR is to drive a positive reputation for an organization, the focus for marcomms was to ramp up revenue. The two could function independently of each other, but today things have changed.

PR is increasingly being tagged to value addition as far as generating revenues for businesses is concerned. Current trends in Uganda and around the world, indicate that many organisations have gone as far as drastically cutting their marketing budgets as a basis for the sustainability of businesses.

Naturally, this becomes a bit of a task, but understandably means the PR industry has to step up another level. Meaning when you have a PR strategy or idea, it’s got to translate into added sales or make more money for the business.

At first this may sound absurd for many PR practitioners. I mean, it was so easy to focus on the business image while marketing and sales did their thing. Our job was to think strategically far and beyond on how to position the company in the public eye. But fast forward to 2018 and things have changed. We now need to appreciate the dynamics of business today. We need to play our part in ensuring that the acquired positive image translates into sales or revenue for a company which would probably agree with the statement that “when PR is done well, advertising is more successful.”

So how can PR be relevant not only to building a positive image for the organization but also play a role in revenues or sales?

I cannot count how many times I have encountered this question in boardrooms in relation to the plans and strategies the teams have designed. As a result, a marriage between public relations and marketing communications has been created, at least in our boardrooms.

Since we are both leaning together towards a shared goal of making sales or increasing revenue for businesses among other factors, it means interactions have got to be more intense.

We have got to attend briefs/meetings together from the very start for the concepts to be understood by both parties. This makes it easy for PR to understand marketing and ably exploit their strategies for visibility while at the same time giving the marketing team a better understanding of PR operations, that way we understand each other and harmonise our communications.

It also means sharing both marketing and PR plans to achieve a satisfactory outcome. And if need be the best outcome could be to combine both plans and have a comprehensive campaign with proper outlines time lines.

It also entails designing messaging and content together. There has to be consistent messaging for bot marketing and PR. The only difference is marketing seeks to be brief and captivating while PR dissects that message and creates understanding among the public.

So as PR contributes to establishing brand identity in a practical and cost efficient manner, it compliments marketing that spends to reach their audiences. The two work best by bouncing ideas off each other to come out with the most effective strategy.