Marketing and Public Relations are both instrumental to the success and healthy sustenance of a company. Conventionally, Marketing refers to the process through which a company communicates the value of the product to its customers in order to eventually spike the sales and satisfy its patrons. It focusses on not just earning moolah but also serving and satisfying the customers efficiently.

On the other hand, Public Relations is directed at communicating regularly with the media and disseminating honest information about the company to its target audience in order to carve a positive image of the company in the market.

The concept of Public Relations in Marketing enhances the marketing of products and services of the company, giving firms an edge over competitors.

Advantages of Public Relations in Marketing

Public Relations (PR) supports Marketing in such a way that the goals of both the disciplines are fulfilled. While the objective of marketing is to boost the sales of goods and services, Public Relations focusses on building an unrivalled reputation of the company. Most importantly, PR indirectly aids in augmenting the sales of products and services provided by the company by communicating with the public and media on a regular basis and by maintaining its goodwill in the market. It strives to attain top-of-the-mind brand recall and helps in positioning and repositioning the brand image among its target audience. This way it indirectly raises the sales to a great extent, resulting in consumers’ growing awareness about the brand, which hence makes the work of marketing much easier.

The concept of Public Relations in Marketing helps firms attain remarkable achievements and fortify their brand presence in the market.

This does not prove that Marketing and Public Relations complement each other. There has always been some sort of competition between the two in terms of, which of them contributes more to an organisation’s development. Although both these functions share a lot of commonalities, they function at different levels and in distinct ways.

Public Relations services include escalating the media visibility and strengthening the brand presence, building and retaining healthy relations with the media, carefully-crafting the brand image by using cutting-edge tools like engaging content, public and media events and so on. These unmatched services provided by PR firm helps organisations create a unique identity for themselves in the market and also become capable to confront the fierce competition. Besides this, PR assists companies in communicating efficiently with the target audience and disseminating positive news about the company to upgrade its brand image.

The strategic amalgamation of business activities to bring the organisation’s products to the buyers in a way that is mutually advantageous for both buyer and seller is what comprises Marketing. It aims at meeting the needs of an organisation’s customers and getting economic returns on it. It is sales-oriented and profit-driven and ensures the smooth transfer of products from the producer to the end consumer.

Marketing and Public Relations

So while Marketing focusses on sales and increasing revenue, Public Relations is directed towards generating positive perceptions and pre-dispositions and strengthening the relationship of the company with its stakeholders. They compete for company’s resources as much as they do for gaining public attention. In order to lessen the expenses, some companies limit themselves to adopting only one discipline, either PR or Marketing. But some opt for both, given the different benefits that an organisation can achieve from each of them.

Based on the objective and the thought-process of organisations, the usage of these disciplines varies from company to company.

Due to the escalating growth of both the sectors, Public Relations has evolved to become Marketing Public Relations (MPR) that is the perfect blend of Marketing and PR and comprises the best of both disciplines. It is a completely company-driven concept as it focusses on maintaining healthy relations between the company and its target audience. The MPR, on the contrary, follows a marketing discipline and is based on the concept of ‘Consumer Orientation’. Owing to rapid globalisation, PR has upgraded itself by dealing directly with consumers and their wants, which is usually an aspect of Marketing.