It's never been so important for PR and marketing to work as one. A company needs its public relations teams to align with the efforts of their marketing department, in order to create a bulletproof brand and drive sales.
Otherwise, holes quickly emerge in a brand's perception and that impacts the bottom line.
That's because the rise of social media, user-led content, and digital analysis of PR and marketing efforts means businesses can succeed and fail much quicker than before.
Whereas a company might previously have got away with a disjointed marketing and public relations strategy, nowadays audiences and the media quickly notice when you're not "on brand."
For example, say a marketing team for a U.S.-based soda brand launches a paid media strategy to highlight how healthy the soda is. At the same time, the company's public relations team is battling negative press about the high levels of sugar in its drinks. The drama plays out on social media and online publications. Clearly marketing and PR isn't working as one.
This guide looks at five strategies for aligning PR and marketing departments more closely, so your business can improve brand perception while also delivering on its marketing efforts.
We'll start by looking at the difference between marketing and public relations, and explain how a holistic approach can save you time, effort, and money.
In This Guide
Bringing PR and Marketing Together
Integrating PR and Marketing Tactics
Digitizing PR and Marketing Departments
Collaboration and Team Dynamics
Content Creation and Distribution
Measuring Success
Bringing PR and Marketing Together
Before we look at five tactics to align PR and marketing, it's worth understanding the difference between the two departments.
Public relations is about working with external media, audiences, and stakeholders to create a positive image of your brand. PR teams need to place positive stories in the media, but also be prepared to react with efficient crisis communications. It's all about reputation management.
Marketing, meanwhile, is more sales-driven and focuses on converting audiences into customers. A marketing professional will have fixed targets they need to meet. Their work is more quantifiable.
Evolution of Marketing and Public Relations
Recent years have seen marketing and public relations tactics skew in different directions. After all, each department has its own goals. The rise of social media and "viral" content means a marketing department can generate sales, while at the same time neglect public perception.
For PR, sales is not the priority. They need to ensure that positive relationships with media, stakeholders, and audiences are maintained, even when the marketing team launches a controversial campaign.
Marketing Vs. Public Relations
Indeed, here are some of the main differences between marketing and PR.
Marketing: Primarily focuses on promoting products and services. Marketing directly targets customers and potential buyers in effort to drive sales and revenue generation. This generally includes paid promotional campaigns, such as paid social media posts or TV commercials.
Public Relations: Primarily focuses on managing a company's image and relationships with the public. The point of PR is to influence various stakeholders, including customers, employees, investors, and communities. PR creates a favorable environment for business growth and, unlike marketing, it relies more on earned media exposure and unpaid communication channels.
Defining the Hybrid: Marketing Public Relations
So, what happens if you merge marketing and public relations together? You get Marketing Public Relations (MPR).
MPR is a strategic approach that combines the best of both worlds. The focus is on enhancing an organization's reputation while driving sales and revenue growth.
Both departments work in synergy with each other through the managed integration of their individual strategies. MPR tends to lean heavily on specific audiences, which provides PR and marketing teams with an identical focus. Meanwhile, the rise of tracking software like CisionOne means both teams can measure and analyze the correct metrics and move forward with more clarity.
Get it right and MPR can revolutionize your brand, while also boosting sales.
So, let's now look at the five PR and marketing tips that you could deploy today.
1. Integrating PR and Marketing Tactics
As we mentioned above, integration between these two departments is paramount if you are to feel the benefit of MPR. To do this, you'll need to begin with an understanding of your existing marketing strategies, and how they compare to your PR goals.
This is the easy part.
Understand Your Public Relations Strategy
First, it's important to get an overview of your existing PR strategies. Look at your current goals, target audiences, media channels, and desired messaging.
Create a report or document that spells out the strategy and how this all relates to your overall business goals. You'll need this when you start to compare and contrast it to what marketing is focused on.
Understand Your Marketing Campaigns
Now it's time to get an overview of your marketing campaigns. Look at the objectives that are currently in place, whether that be increased sales or generating leads. Detail the budget allocated for these campaigns and which audiences are targeted.
Next, record what content you had in the pipeline and which platforms you intended to publish on. Finally, include any market research you've already done, so you have evidence to back up your plans.
Do all this and you'll have an accurate marketing report for what you feel is needed to reach your goals.
How to Integrate
So, you have your PR overview and your marketing report. It's now time to integrate the two into a holistic strategy.
Start by aligning your goals. Where do your public relations goals meet your marketing aims? Work on how they can align from a brand image and ROI perspective. Can you achieve positive public sentiment with the marketing tools available to you?
Next, work on how you can share resources. This doesn't just have to be budget-related. You can share expertise, merge PR and marketing teams, and create content from the same place.
After that, you can begin to consolidate your core messaging into two or three strands. The aim here is for every marketing campaign to align with overarching PR messaging.
By building mutually beneficial relationships, it's possible to create a marketing and PR department that works as one. You've just nailed MPR.
2. Digitizing PR and Marketing Departments
The Role of Digital Marketing in PR
In today's competitive landscape, digital marketing plays a crucial role in your organization's PR efforts. Integrating digital marketing into your overall PR strategy can enhance your brand's online presence and increase your reach to your target audience.
Here are some ways digital marketing impacts PR:
SEO: By optimizing your content for search engines, you can improve your visibility to potential customers and make it easier for media and influencers to find your content.
Content marketing: Creating valuable and engaging content helps you establish thought leadership and build trust with your audience.
Analytics: Digital marketing tools allow your marketing department to track and measure the effectiveness of your PR efforts, ensuring that you are making data-driven decisions.
Influence of Social Media Ads on PR
With the increasing popularity of social media platforms, social media ads have become essential for a successful PR campaign. A well-executed social media ad campaign can complement your traditional PR efforts by:
Expanding your reach: Social media ads help you tap into a wider audience and reach potential customers who may not be aware of your brand.
Targeting specific demographics: You can customize your ads to reach a specific segment of your target audience based on their interests, behaviors, and demographics.
Strengthening relationships: By engaging with your audience through social media ads, you can inspire loyalty and trust in your brand.
E-commerce and Online Reputation
In the world of e-commerce, your online reputation is vital for gaining the trust of potential customers. Here's how your organization's reputation can benefit from coordinated PR and marketing efforts:
Reviews and ratings: Encourage satisfied customers to share their positive experiences on review platforms. This not only helps increase your visibility, but also builds trust with potential customers.
Influencer partnerships: Collaborating with relevant influencers can help create buzz around your brand, positively impacting your online reputation.
Crisis management: With a solid PR strategy in place, you can handle any negative situations that may arise, mitigating damage to your brand's reputation.
Collaboration and Team Dynamics
Roles within PR and Marketing Teams
In your marketing team, you might encounter a diverse range of roles, such as:
Marketing Strategist: Determines the overall marketing direction and goals.
Content Creator: Develops engaging content for different channels.
Social Media Manager: Manages your organization's social media presence.
Graphic Designer: Creates visual content for marketing collateral.
Within a PR team, you may find roles like:
PR Strategist: Defines the public relations strategy to create a positive image of the organization.
Media Relations Specialist: Builds and maintains relationships with key media outlets.
Crisis Communications Expert: Manages your organization's response to crises.
Keep in mind that these roles could vary by company size and structure.
Collaboration Between Sales, PR, and Marketing
For a successful collaboration between sales, PR, and marketing teams, you should:
Align your goals: Establish joint objectives to work towards.
Identify key messages: Consistently promote key messages that resonate with your target audience.
Share resources: Collaborate on research, content creation, and social media campaigns to maximize efficiency.
Constantly communicate: Hold regular meetings to update each other on progress and challenges.
Communication Strategy and Corporate Communications
When crafting the communication strategy for your organization, you should:
Analyze your audience: Identify the segments you want to target and understand their demographics, interests, and values.
Define your objectives: Set specific goals for your communications, such as increasing brand awareness or promoting a new product.
Choose your messaging: Develop persuasive, consistent messages that align with your goals and resonate with your audience.
Select appropriate channels: Identify the platforms your audience uses and adapt your content accordingly.
By applying these principles to your communications strategy, you can convey a strong, unified message that enhances your organization's reputation and nurtures relationships with stakeholders.
Content Creation and Distribution
Press Release Writing and Distribution
When writing press releases, it's essential to craft an informative and engaging message.
Start by identifying the key points like the product or service details, and keep your target audience in mind.
Make your headline attention grabbing, and follow a concise structure. Don't forget to include your contact information for journalists.
Once your press release is written, distribute it through relevant channels such as online PR submission websites, news outlets, and email pitches to targeted journalists.
Monitoring the coverage and engagement is also vital to adapt your future strategies.
Content Marketing Elements
Content marketing is an integral part of your PR and marketing strategy. It helps in building trust, increasing your brand's exposure, and generating leads.
Make sure to incorporate various types of content to engage your audience. Some important elements to consider are:
Blog posts: Write informative, relevant, and useful articles for your audience.
Infographics: Package complex information into visually appealing and easy-to-understand graphics.
E-Books and whitepapers: Share your in-depth knowledge about a specific topic to establish your brand's expertise.
Videos: Create engaging videos to showcase your products, services, or stories.
Keep your content consistent, relevant, and engaging so you can foster long-term relationships with your audience.
Leveraging Social Media Platforms
Utilizing social media platforms effectively helps you reach your audience with relevant content. Here's what you need to do:
Choose the right platforms: Focus on platforms where your target audience is active. Your content and approach should be tailored for each specific platform.
Create unique social media posts: Share your content through well-crafted and intriguing posts that incorporate visuals, hashtags, mentions, and other features.
Interact with your audience: Engage in conversations with your followers and respond to their comments, messages, or inquiries.
Track your performance: Measure the engagement, reach, clicks, impressions, and new followers to improve your social media strategy.
Remember, consistency and relevance are vital when it comes to content creation and distribution on social media platforms. Flexibility in adapting to new trends and audience preferences will help your brand make a lasting impact.
Measuring Success
Understanding PR Metrics and SEO
To measure the success of your PR and marketing efforts, it's crucial to understand the key metrics related to SEO and PR.
Some important metrics to consider include:
Organic Search Traffic: A primary goal of PR and marketing efforts is to improve visibility on search engines. Track the number of visitors coming to your site through organic search to gauge your success in this area.
Keyword Rankings: Identify the keywords most relevant to your business and monitor their rankings on search engines. Improvement in these rankings indicates progress in your SEO efforts.
Social Media Metrics: Social media platforms serve as a key channel for PR and marketing. Keep a close eye on metrics such as followers, likes, shares, and comments to evaluate the effectiveness of your social media strategies.
Backlinks: The number and quality of backlinks to your site significantly influence your SEO score. Track the growth in backlinks to evaluate your PR and outreach campaigns.
Analyzing Marketing Outcomes
Marketing analysis is essential in determining the outcomes of your marketing efforts. You should:
Review your sales goals: Compare the expected sales targets with your actual sales to determine the success of your marketing campaigns.
Assess customer acquisition costs: Calculate the cost of acquiring a new customer and compare it with your sales revenue to ensure that your marketing efforts are cost-effective.
Monitor conversion rate: Analyze the percentage of visitors to your website who take the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. Improvement in the conversion rate indicates marketing success.
Sales and Brand Awareness Correlation
While increasing sales is a primary goal, it's equally important to focus on building brand awareness. To measure success in increasing brand awareness, you can track the following:
Brand recognition: Assess the number of people who recognize your brand, logo, or tagline. Conduct regular surveys and use tools like Google Trends to gauge an increase in brand recognition.
Media mentions: Keep track of your brand's media mentions, as they showcase your brand's reputation and visibility in the market. Greater media coverage translates to increased brand awareness.
Social Media Presence: An engaged and growing social media following is a strong indicator of brand awareness. Keep track of your followers, likes, and shares to measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts.
