Public Relations and Marketing are both integral parts to the success of a company, but they serve different purposes. Public Relations handles the aspect of maintaining a favorable company public image, whereas the purpose of Marketing is to promote and sell products or services. Marketing works on specific products and Public Relations focuses on the entire companies reputation.

A Public Relations professional has many different components as part of their daily work schedule. They may find themselves writing a press release announcement, such as a new product or service, contacting the media to pitch positive stories about upcoming endeavors that the company is doing and PR may also need to schedule speaking opportunities for executives, continuously build relationships with media and influencers, manage and update company messaging, and creating talking points for upcoming speeches or even address the press if a company crisis should arise.

A Marketing professional has a variety of job duties as well. They are responsible for creating advertising campaigns when there is a new product or service being launched. Depending on the product, they also need to buy advertising space for the relevant media platforms. Marketing must also create supporting materials for product launches when needed, conducting industry and client research to make sure their marketing is going in the right direction and possibly drafting weekly newsletters for clients.

Both professionals have different ways to measure their success.

The Marketing department calculates their success based on if the product met or exceeded sales goals, comparing marketing expenses to profit made to see if the ROI was high or low, and seeing how much excitement they were able to generate from social media, influencers and the general public. The Public Relations department measures their success by measuring the traction they generated in relevant top media outlets, an executive giving a strong speech at a large event, any awards won at well known industry events and great buzz from all media outlets and the public.

While each position has different roles in a company, both roles need each other to succeed. Public Relations need to make others feel connected to the brand and products and Marketing needs to deliver a good campaign with a product to match.
If one fails, it will be hard for the other to be successful, as both need to work closely together for the same goal.

Hina Mirza
PR & Media Specialist at The Social Company