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Marketing and public relations generally aim for the same goals, such as business development, increasing sales, and employee recruitment. When done well, both work together to create awareness and shape the perception of a brand in the market.
However, the mindsets needed to succeed in each of these fields are very different. Recognizing this fundamental difference can help companies align their PR and marketing strategies and get more out of both.
Earned Media vs Owned Media
While both public relations and marketing are creative fields, they diverge widely when it comes to issues of timing and control over content.
Marketers are used to having complete control of both timing and content. Their focus is typically “owned media,” such as the company website, video and social channels, or paid media, such as social media advertising, sponsorships or traditional advertising. The marketer uses their expertise to help the client shape the content and determine when it will be published to maximize performance.
PR, on the other hand, involves collaboration with the independent press earned media, which depends on the public relations professional’s ability to present their client as interesting or notable enough to gain coverage. The media typically dictates the timing and has final control over the content.
Understanding what the press is looking for and when is absolutely essential to a successful PR campaign. This isn’t necessarily what marketers spend their time thinking about. In fact, great marketers are often so deeply immersed in their client’s brand and direct interactions with its customer base that they find it difficult to adapt to the very different perspective of the press.
Marketers are therefore generally proactive. They develop and execute a strategy according to a timeline of their choosing. While good marketers can create content in response to news events, actually doing so requires a different kind of experience In the news.
Good PR firms are also proactive in their strategy and outreach, but great PR firms are specially equipped to be reactive when necessary. An experienced PR professional recognizes urgent opportunities and is skilled at guiding their client through the act of seizing the moment without straying from the core message.
The resulting press materials may be very different from the content and messages found in the company’s marketing channels, but both can still fully reflect the brand: one is simply filtered through the media’s unique needs and expectations.
The key to a successful collaboration between marketing and PR is for each (and company leadership) to recognize that they are different disciplines with their own best practices, and that each has a unique role to play in a comprehensive external communications strategy.
Related: Do You Need a Public Relations or Marketing Professional? Here’s the difference
Building media relationships rather than building marketing assets
Many companies offer both marketing and PR to their clients. But for a company to do both effectively, it must essentially treat marketing and PR as distinct entities, each with its own dedicated responsibilities and resources. This is often not the case.
With PR, in particular, dabbling isn’t as effective. When an editor or producer works with a public relations agent on multiple stories a year, a relationship develops that will leave the reporter more open to pitches. PR firms spend a lot of time fostering new connections, maintaining existing ones, and leveraging those relationships to gain coverage.
Networking and collaboration with the press are typically not a priority for marketing companies that are more focused on key deliverables, like a new website. While exceptions certainly exist, many full-service companies wow the customer with marketing and settle for relatively modest public relations results.
Why? For one thing, it’s easier to overlook public relations than marketing. Everyone notices if your company has a terrible website, but they won’t necessarily notice your company’s absence in the press. As a result, PR can easily become an afterthought in some organizations.
To do PR well – and drive traffic and leads to that great website your marketing team created – resources must be explicitly dedicated to earned media, whether it’s an external PR firm or an internal team. If PR is simply an addition to a marketing strategy, you will be leaving a lot of value on the table because a marketing department or agency cannot be expected to develop the relationships necessary to generate press coverage in addition to their other mission-related responsibilities. critical.
Related: Should You Start with PR or Marketing First?
Conflict vs Collaboration for Marketing and PR Companies
There’s a magic that happens when a PR firm and a marketing agency are both fully engaged on behalf of the same client. When a marketing firm working with one of our clients produces exceptional research, language or insights as part of a marketing campaign, it helps us think more clearly about how we are positioning the firm in our work and can create additional value for members of the media and their audiences.
Likewise, when the PR team introduces media placements beyond what the client had anticipated, it creates momentum that spills over into everything the client is doing on the marketing front. Suddenly, social media, email marketing, and conferencing are all performing beyond expectations as they are used to share and reference high-quality media placements in noteworthy outlets.
The best approach is for public relations and marketing to be in contact frequently and closely follow what each other does. They should not try to control each other, but instead look for ways they can help each other. PR campaigns are often stronger with great marketing assets, and press coverage often leads to great marketing content.
Two companies at the top of their game challenging each other works like jazz, the give and take amplifies the ROI of both investments. When marketing and PR inspire each other through completely different perspectives, it’s a beautiful thing.