PR and Marketing: Spot the 7 Differences. Timur Aslanov
What's the difference between PR and marketing, and a PR professional and a marketer? Lately, there's been a lot of talk, if not about the merging of PR and marketing, then about the blurring of the boundaries between them. And there's often confusion, especially among employers. I offer my own version of the difference between PR and marketing.
"PR is part of marketing," say marketers and PR professionals with a marketing background. "Everything a company does in the outside world, including marketing, is PR," counter those from the other camp.
Let's try to understand the fundamental differences so we can more easily navigate them ourselves and help employers and clients. I offer six important distinctions for your consideration.
Target Audience.
Marketing targets two key groups: current clients and potential clients. And of course, former clients, although they can be placed in one of the former groups depending on the state of their "former" status.
PR takes a broader view of the audience. The goal of PR is to maintain positive relationships and communications with everyone who interacts with our organization or brand. This includes clients, but also employees (current, former, and future), the media, public organizations, company suppliers, regulators, government agencies, and so on. Every self-respecting PR department has a list of stakeholders—people whose opinions are essential to the company's successful operation and development. And this list is almost never limited to clients.
Working Tactics.
Marketing focuses primarily on direct sales, while PR is more focused on reputation management, creating a positive image, and building relationships with stakeholders.
PR's goal isn't to have a line of clients lining up at the company's office tomorrow with wads of cash they'd like to hand over to the company. That is, such a goal is implicitly present in the list of objectives. But this will likely be the result of years of joint efforts to build image and reputation, rather than the result of a one-time action, as with a marketer.
Money.
Marketing spends a lot of money. Most marketing tools are expensive. Even so-called guerrilla methods are still mostly not free. Every action, every acquired client, is an expense.
PR can accomplish a lot without any investment. Excluding payroll, the PR department budget in some companies can be zero, yet the PR results can be quite impressive.
This doesn't mean, of course, that PR people shouldn't have a budget. If you don't pay a publication or a journalist for an article, that doesn't mean you shouldn't take the journalist out to a restaurant occasionally, bring bloggers from different cities to your production facility, give your partners unusual and cool souvenirs, and so on. There are other ways to spend money, and PR with a budget is always more effective. It's just that the range of free tools is quite wide.
Credit.
When a marketer communicates with a consumer, the consumer, in most cases, clearly understands that they are being contacted by a brand, and that this brand wants to sell them something. Typically, the brand does this quite aggressively, invading the consumer's personal space, interrupting a movie or YouTube video, popping up as a banner in the browser window, or invading their email inbox like an uninvited guest. And even if a cunning marketer uses native advertising, camouflaging themselves like a chameleon, the modern consumer in most cases senses a trick.
Therefore, trust in advertising messages is low. Marketers compensate for this low trust by increasing the frequency of contact. And hence, trust is low and irritation from them is high.
A PR professional, on the other hand, offers a soft touch. Useful articles, expert opinions, interviews with respected journalists, involvement in interesting events. The consumer reads interesting things. The consumer benefits. The consumer understands that they are not being sold anything specific. No one is trying to take their money right now. And he trusts. And he believes. And he lets it into his consciousness and subconscious.
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