3 Reasons Your Marketing Campaign Needs PR Components
In most marketing and branding firms, there is a clear distinction between the marketing and PR teams. While they are certainly very different aspects of business communications, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t work together.
I come from a public relations background, so I often push for building PR into most campaigns. This is because I am a big proponent of the power of PR and firmly believe that it helps enhance branding efforts.
Let’s take a look at three big reasons why your next marketing campaign needs PR components.
PR Raises Awareness
One of the primary functions of PR is to raise awareness of a company, product, event, cause, etc. But this function can get lost amid the rush of starting a new marketing campaign for a business.
It sounds a bit obvious, but PR marketing makes people aware that you exist. This is extremely important when your goal is to make a splash through marketing! Effectively implementing PR lets people know a certain business exists and helps tell that company’s unique brand story. PR uses different channels than outright advertising and marketing, so it provides yet another way to reach audiences. When done correctly, a PR plan will complement and enhance marketing efforts, helping gain attention and awareness, increase the audience, and ultimately, draw in new customers.
PR Reinforces Messaging
When you continue to think of PR and marketing as two completely separate functions, you miss the opportunity to double your efforts to create a clear, singular message and identity to the public. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean they should both be doing the same thing. For example, PR focused social media may look different, but still support the same brand messaging as marketing efforts.
However, PR and marketing should go beyond parallel messaging. By having the two disciplines intertwine and intersect as much as possible, the overall message becomes clearer and more widespread.
Current industry trends show that by removing the barriers between PR and marketing, clearer, integrated messaging can emerge. This can create a whole new way of working. According to the emerging tech research company Flarrio, “Many corporations are doing away with the old titles and the old schools of thought and building a new team called Integrated Communication.” This makes it possible to both boost sales while also building the company’s brand.
The bottom line is that by working together, everything – including the overall messaging – becomes stronger.
PR Prepares You for Anything
Perhaps the best reason to include PR in any marketing campaign is that, as we’ve all certainly learned in 2020, you just never know what’s around the corner. By creating a PR plan as part of a marketing campaign, you’re prepared for outcomes good and not so good.
Many people mistakenly believe that PR plans are exclusively for large corporations, but that just isn’t true. According to the media monitoring company Mention, “PR is even more essential for small businesses to grow.” The truth is, in today’s business world, it’s essential for almost any company to have a public relations plan that focuses on goals, objectives, strategies and tactics.
At Nichols Brand Stories, we often work hand-in-hand withNichols Brand Storiescare and Nichols Brand Stories to create robust PR campaigns as part of overall marketing efforts. We also work with outside companies to help put the power of PR to work to get the most out of any marketing plan, large or small.
To find out more about merging PR and marketing, simply reach out to me anytime at Mbakle@WeTellYourStories.com.