A common misconception that I hear a lot is that public relations (PR), marketing, and branding are all the same thing and that there’s no point in investing in all of them. While there might be some overlap here and there, these are three totally different disciplines that help businesses get more customers. Today we’ll chat about what the differences are and why a business might want to use them.
Branding
Branding is the act of creating and reinforcing a reputation of a business. It’s how you define your company. Branding covers everything from how it looks, to what messages it shares what values it has, and more. It’s the core personality of your business. Branding tells the story of your business, what makes it special and why people should buy from you. It’s the “who” in all of this. It helps PR and marketing do their job because it tells them what types of audiences to attract, what language to use, and more. This is why I say that a good solid brand strategy is crucial. It tells a business to whom to sell their offers and a specialist can help you uncover and create your best possible strategy.
Marketing
Marketing is the distribution of a message with a particular measurable goal as the endpoint. This can be anything. Common goals are getting more customers to buy an offer, more donations for a fundraiser, and more viewers of a video or show. Pretty much any measurable goal can be the endpoint for a marketing campaign. This is the main way to connect your brand with potential customers, it is what I consider the “how” of the three disciplines. There are a lot of different strategies to connect potential customers with a brand. That is why it is great to work with a specialist who can help you create the strategy for your specific business.
Public Relations
PR or public relations works alongside marketing. While marketing mostly focuses on getting people to interact with a brand in a specific way such as buying something, PR focuses on getting the brand more attention to help people know who the company is and create a positive reputation for the business. It acts as the go-between for the business and its preferred audiences including potential customers, the general public, financial backers, and more. Its main goal is to help these different audiences have specific usually positive thoughts about the company. Public Relations efforts can stand on their own or they can tie into a company’s marketing efforts. This is the “where” of the three disciplines as its focus is on where a company’s audience might be hanging out. Again, I do recommend you work with a professional PR person to get the most out of the available types of PR that might be right for your business.
Hope this clears up confusion about what branding, marketing, and pr do for a business. You can definitely invest in all three to help your business grow and thrive. When you do that people will know who you are, where they can find you, and how they can get a hold of you to shop with you which are all great things for a business to know.
By the way, If you’re ready to be seen as a pro in your industry and stop being the best-kept secret, it’s time to up-level your business with clear and unified branding. Book a 15-minute no-pitch consultation call today by clicking here