Is Public Relations Really Different from Marketing?

According to PRSA, “public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” It is a process of ongoing communication aimed at fostering trust and mutual understanding. However, many people tend to confuse public relations with marketing due to their overlapping strategies, such as storytelling, fostering relationships, and creating awareness. 

Marketing is “the activity, set of institutions, and process for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large,” according to the American Marketing Association. While both professions emphasize constant communication and audience engagement, their methods differ. 

While public relations builds and maintains relationships, they do so over a long period of time. By constantly reinforcing communication with current and prospective clients, public relations focuses on the maintenance of these relationships. On the other hand, marketing builds relationships in a short period of time, attempting to boost sales and customers rapidly through campaigns. Although both professions highlight the value of communication, public relations utilizes long-term relationships rather than marketing’s short-term relationships.

The PESO Model, created by Gini Dietrich, also plays an important role in distinguishing public relations and marketing. PESO is made up of four different media–paid media, earned media, shared media, and owned media–that illustrate the different strategic ways of using them to communicate across platforms. For example, public relations professionals typically gravitate towards earned media, attempting to get their message across platforms such as news articles, influencers, and more. Meanwhile, marketing professionals use paid media, controlling their messages across platforms such as advertising, sponsorships, and more. The PESO Model serves as a symbol of the different ways it can be used to facilitate awareness, whether it’s from the public relations or marketing aspect. 

The daily responsibilities of public relations and marketing specialists also differ. Depending on the field of public relations an individual may be in, their work typically consists of writing press releases, pitches, crisis communication plans, and managing relationships. Meanwhile, marketers tend to manage media profiles, create campaigns, and do marketing research. While both professions focus on creating an admirable perception of their clients, they do so in different ways. 

Although both professions have distinct aspects in achieving a shared goal, both public relations and marketing do have some cross-over components that can be mistaken for each other. That’s why it is important to know how to distinguish between the communication side of public relations and the business side of marketing.