Public Relations
and marketing are two professions that work well together in accomplishing a
main goal of understanding your consumer and the relationship they have with
your brand or product.
My knowledge and
interest for both fields of study has grown over the time I have been pursuing
both degrees. Lack of knowledge about either profession creates misperceptions
and judgments. Therefore, having a clear understanding of the similarities and differences
is important in a competitive market.
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A technical
definition of public relations is a management function that uses two-way
communication to receive information from and give information to an organization’s
various publics (Rothberg, 2011). An important distinction between public
relations and marketing is that public relations use tools that are less
costly, while still reaching a large audience.
The primary
tools of public relations are press releases, feature stores, publicity,
sponsored event, interviews and press conferences. It is essential for these
tools to be sincere because consumers will see right through it. Also, if it
does not feel authentic to the consumer the effort loses its value and impact.
Public Relations
is an important aspect of a company as its efforts generate free exposure due
to increased press coverage. Many marketers would agree to say that public
relations is a more memorable and impactful way in reaching the goal of a
consumer.
Marketing can be defines as
consisting of actions designed to elicit desired responses from a targeted
audience (Oakley, 2010).
Marketing is pervasive in consumers’ daily lives. Its effects are embedded in
everything we do: from the clothes we chose to wear, to the ads we see around
us, to the internet websites we chose to visit (Oakley, 2010).
A common misperception
about marketing is that its main goal is selling the product. Nevertheless,
marketing is not selling. Marketing is all about customer needs and using
integrated marketing to profit through customer satisfaction (Oakley, 2010).
I think both
marketers and public relations practitioners have a limited and selective
knowledge about each other’s profession. Misperceptions and judgments are easy
to make when we lack knowledge. After all both public relations practitioners
and marketers are creative, passionate, and willing to think outside the box.
They both approach a market from a relationship standpoint and design messages
around the needs and perceptions of the target audience.
By Meliha
Krvavac
Associate
Manager
