The Difference Between Public Relations and Marketing

Most of the time we get confused between marketing and public relations and take it to be the same. But there is a thin line that separates both of them and though their goals are the same that is growth of the company, but their modes as well as applications are completely different. Marketing is the management process for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customers requirements profitably, whereas public relations is a strategic management function that adds value to an organization by helping it to manage its reputation. Marketing provides paid-for exposure to the company, while public relations provide free media exposure. A marketing approach would be to sell the products and services of the company taking into consideration demand and competition, while public relations approach would be more towards building reputation of a company or an individual.
The difference between public relations and marketing could be easily understood with the help of an example. Suppose you own a business that deals in beauty products. To sell your product you would resort to marketing that will help you to identify customers and competitors and would help you sale your product more, but if your company is experiencing some bad press then you have to resort to beauty PR for restoring the reputation of the company. The beauty PR through press releases will clarify all the rumors and people will easily believe it, as leading newspaper in an unbiased way would cover it. So, the thing that can’t be attained through marketing could be easily achieved through PR. The positive image created by PR will help you achieve the faith of your stakeholders as well as investors, who would be ready to invest more in your company owing to your good market reputation. PR can also help you boosting employee morale and help you to recruit and retain employees, which is not possible through marketing.
Although there are differences between marketing and PR, but both of them are complementary to each other. A strong positive reputation created by PR makes marketing easier, while good marketing makes PR job easier because even press give those companies adequate coverage that are known for their good sales in the market. In many companies PR function is managed within broader marketing division and PR skills are often thought as a subset of marketing skills. Well, whether it’s marketing or PR you should not bother much about them. You should rather focus on choosing the most appropriate tool for meeting your goal