Public Relations is not Marketing

I regularly troll through the help wanted advertisements on-line, looking to see what companies are hiring public relations professionals and what they are expecting their new hires to do.  Many, if not most of the ads looking for PR people today are actually looking for sales and marketing people, not public relations.  So, what is the difference between PR and Marketing?

The fundamental difference is in the purpose of the work.  Neither is “better” or “more valuable” to an organization than the other; both are important to the success of any organization.  Both involve communication, using sometimes similar techniques.

The main difference is that the purpose of marketing is to drive sales — or, for a non-profit or government agency, use of the product or service by intended audiences.  Marketing is almost always one-way communication; organizations build talking points and advertising campaigns that are directed at audiences who should be interested in the product or service.  It is fairly easy to evaluate the success of a marketing program over a short time period by measuring the change in sales or usage.

The intent of public relations is to build the intangible relationships that allow an organization to operate most effectively in its environment for the most benefit.  Public relations activities are not just one-way transmissions of messages to audiences, but involve two-way communication with internal and external audiences who are touched by the organization’s people, mission, and operations.  Most importantly, public relations professionals act as a councilor to organizational leaders to bring those viewpoints into decision-making.  In the long-run, PR improves the environment in which an organization operates, driving profitability, growth and serving the public good.

Public relations results are often not easy to measure in the short-term; but it is easy to see when they’ve gone bad.  Some organizations lose their reputations with important audiences overnight through scandal or disaster.  Many others lose their good names over time in a slow erosion of trust.

If you only see public relations as marketing, you may be leaving yourself vulnerable to both scenarios.

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