Marketing and Public Relations are both promotional tools used by companies to have a larger customer base and to improve upon sales. Many people tend to think they know what marketing and public relations stand for, but become confused when asked to explain. It is true that both are used for promotion but there are fine demarcations between marketing and public relations. While both strategies work towards the same objective of generating more revenues for the company, marketing and public relations differ in substance and approach.
Marketing
It refers to all activities undertaken by a company to conduct market research, sell products and services and creating awareness among the public about the products through aggressive advertising. It is a very broad concept needs careful planning and execution. The main purpose of marketing is to identify, satisfy, retain and possible increase the customer base. Proper marketing requires company to undertake research about the customers and to know their needs and wants. Sometimes it can also work to create a need for a product or service. While engaging in marketing, the sole objective of the team is to earn revenues for the company by attracting customers and selling them more and more of products and services of the company.
Public Relations
The phrase is self explanatory in the sense that this exercise is all about creating favourable image and perception about the company among the public. It is an effective ploy to keep communication between the company and the public in such a manner so as to create a favourable image of the company. This is also known as rapport building exercise. Many tools are employed by companies to keep in touch with public, and traditionally press releases and newsletter have been used to remain in the eyes of the public. Of late, companies are making effective use of internet for public relations. In particular, companies are using blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to make announcements about the company.
We know now that marketing and public relations are both promotional tools but both have glaring differences in methodology.
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Difference between Marketing and Public Relations › While marketing is a very broad term encompassing many things, public relations are just a part of it. › Marketing is done to promote a product or service of a company, while public relations are an exercise which is engaged in to promote the company itself. › Marketing is selling a particular product while public relations are a way to create a favourable image of the company itself. › When public relations exercise has been conducted, it provides useful inputs about the perception of the company and helps in deciding the marketing strategy › While the sole purpose of marketing is to generate revenues for the company, public relations are not financially focussed. › Marketing refers to all sorts of ads and media campaigns about a product and it is generally a short term strategy where as public relations is an ongoing strategy and the company engages in it all the time to build relationships with the customers. |