The Child of PR and Marketing

This weekend, members of PRSSA and myself attended a PRSSA regional conference at Penn State, where we learned and discussed many different interesting PR topics.  One of the topics that really interested me was when Adam Kmiee, Global Director of Digital and Social Media at Campbell Soup Company, discussed PR and marketing becoming one.  

I personally avoided marketing because of the business and math side of it, as I’m sure many others in the PR world have. After attending the conference, I started to compare and take a closer look at the two.  If you take away the math, PR and marketing do not have many differences.  The idea of both is to promote a person or business and reach a target audience.  Marketing has a bit more of a business spin on that, while PR is more light and friendly.  Both marketing and PR are constantly doing research to figure out how to reach their target audiences and what their audiences are looking for.  The major difference between the two is money.  Marketing deals a lot more with money.  Marketing professionals deal with where to place ads, how much can be spent on PR campaigns and figure out how to manage every dollar spent.  Public relations on the other hand deals with the public and media more.  Public relations professionals talk to the newspapers and journalists and monitor public approval (or disapproval).  

After thinking about all the similarities, it really occurred to me that one could not exist without the other. Marketing needs public relations to deal with the public and make sure the right message is reaching the right audience.  Public relations needs marketing to help them reach that audience, without breaking the bank.  While speaking, Kmiee said, “I want marketers who know digital who love social.”  

I started looking into what other PR professionals thought of the combination of PR and marketing together and I found this great diagram on PRNewswire by Yin Wu, which really opened my eyes to even more benefits of the two together. 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jackie Grillo.