Is it PR or Marketing or Advertising?

While "good PR" is essential for a successful business - very few business owners really understand the difference between PR, advertising & marketing. While all three components are important to you and your business - they are very different. Knowing the difference and doing your market research can put your company on the path to substantial growth. 

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Let's start off by reviewing the formal definitions of each and then go into the explanation of how these three differ from one another:

Advertising: The paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers.

Marketing: The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring your business, products and services to the attention of your potential marketplace and customers.

Public Relations: Public relations includes ongoing activities to ensure the company has a strong public image. Public relations activities include helping the public to understand the company and its products. Often, public relations are conducted through the media - newspapers, television, magazines, etc.

To understand the relationship of the three, think of marketing as a pie, and inside that pie you have slices of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, product pricing, distribution, customer support, sales strategy, and community involvement, etc. Advertising and PR are simply pieces of the pie in the strategy.

All of these elements must not only work independently but they also must work together towards the bigger goal. Marketing is a process that takes time and can involve hours of research for a marketing plan to be effective. Think of marketing as everything that an organization does to facilitate an exchange between company and consumer.

So why is PR so important in this overall Marketing strategy? Simply put, while the concept of marketing is absolutely essential to your success as a business owner (small or otherwise!), it can also be expensive to implement a full-blown“traditional” marketing campaign, so understanding and utilizing good public relations techniques is vital to survival for most of us starting out.

And, even once you can afford to buy those expensive media blitzes - good PR is still one of the best weapons in your marketing arsenal, and one that you never want to underuse!

While this Channel technically focuses on PR - you will always find articles, ideas and resources that "cross" the line between marketing and advertising and "PR" - we will always be looking for new ideas to expand your marketing dollars and advertising programs through good PR.

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