The Difference Between Public Relations, Marketing and Advertising
By Julianna Reyes | November 10, 2021
As someone studying or working in the public relations industry, you may have come across people who often interchange public relations with marketing or advertising, thinking they are all the same thing, right? While you may know that they are not the same, it may be hard to explain what exactly the differences are since they truly are very similar! While all three are meant to promote an organization and/or it’s products and services, each have specific goals and actions that make them easy to set apart.
In order to fully understand the differences between the three, it’s important to understand what each one is individually. Let’s break it down.
What is Public Relations?
Public relations is all about creating a favorable public image for a client, brand, or organization. It focuses on brand awareness, building relationships, and media coverage. The most common tools used in PR are press releases, pitch letters, crisis communication plans, and so much more. Public relations is all about earned media through the press and news outlets in order to reach a target audience.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is the overarching process of promoting or selling products or services and the method of how it reaches a target audience through paid media. To put it simply, marketing encompasses everything. All of the strategic actions and efforts put into one plan is marketing. Therefore, public relations and advertising fall under the marketing category as they could be used as tools in the marketing process. Other common tools in marketing are digital and social media marketing, search optimization strategies, customer relationship management, and more.
What is Advertising?
Advertising is paid promotion of a product, service, or idea. As stated above, advertising is one component of marketing. Companies pay for their advertisements to show up on television, radio, social media, etc, in order to reach a target audience to purchase a product or service.
What are the main differences?
All three involve strategic planning and communication to reach a targeted audience, but here are the main differences:
Goals: The goal in public relations is to create a positive public image for a brand, client, or organization while the goal in marketing and advertising is to promote or sell a product or service.
Actions: The actions in public relations are all about the press and communicating with the public. The actions in marketing and advertising revolve around promoting a product or service through different outlets.
Media: Public relations is free or earned media while marketing and advertising rely on paid media to promote a client’s products or services.
Public relations, marketing, and advertising are all important in order to have a successful business or organization. As a professional in the field, it is crucial to be able to understand the difference and know how they work together to reach a client’s goal. Now that we’ve broken down the key differences, hopefully it will be easier to explain next time someone mistakes one with another!
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Author’s Bio: Julianna Reyes is a senior at CSUN studying Public Relations, Marketing, and Sustainability. As a major Disney fan, Julianna hopes to work for the Walt Disney Company as a part of their public relations or marketing team. In her free time, you can find Julianna at the Disney parks enjoying a sweet treat or taking photos in Fantasyland!