The Differences Between PR and Marketing

And Which One is More Important for Your Business

Alexander Lim
4 min readDec 10, 2021

As a business owner, you have a number of goals to accomplish. One of the goals is to sell your product or service. In order to accomplish this goal, you need to market your product or service.

Marketing is a highly strategic task. It requires creative ideas, professional strategies, and effective strategies. It also requires strong leadership skills.

However, while it is true that sales are an important part of marketing, the fact is that the success of your company depends on your ability to create a strong brand.

In order to achieve a strong brand, you need to have a strong reputation. This is why you must build a solid reputation in the marketplace. In order to do this, you need to use effective marketing strategies. And here PR comes in.

Marketing and PR are two different things. PR is the public relations component of marketing. It is the media attention that you get for your company. It is how you can reach out to your potential customers and tell them about your product or service.

Marketing is a very broad term. It can be defined as the promotion of your product or service through advertising, promotion, and sales. However, creating a strong brand is a combination of all of these.

Let’s start with a clear definition of what each term means:

PR

Public Relations is also known as publicity, public affairs, and PR It is a form of communication aimed at creating favorable impressions of an organization or individual.

It includes all activities undertaken by an organization or individual to ensure media coverage or generate positive attention about them or their product, service, cause, company name, etc.

Marketing

Marketing is a broad term used to describe activities involved in communicating ideas to potential customers for the purpose of acquiring new customers or increasing sales volume.

It includes any activity aimed at developing customer relationships through direct contact with potential customers, including advertising campaigns.

The Differences Between PR and Marketing

While it is true that the two are related. However, they are not the same thing. There are a number of differences between marketing and PR. Marketers create an idea for a product or service that can be sold to customers.

They then design a marketing strategy that will allow them to reach their customers and convince them to buy their product or service. As mentioned, marketing is also responsible for developing an effective marketing plan that includes promotional activities such as advertising, promotion, and sales.

The PR team will create a company’s image and reputation based on news stories about the company and its products or services in the media such as magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and affiliate websites.

These stories about your company create demand for your products or services, which you will then use to promote your product or service through advertising and promotions such as TV commercials and newspaper ads.

A key difference between marketing and PR is that the former is focused on the short term. The latter is focused on the long term.

This means that while marketing is concerned with generating sales, PR is concerned with building a strong brand. The latter is concerned with building a strong brand for the long term.

The bottom line is that marketing focuses on short term sales and revenue. PR focuses on long term revenue and profits.

Which One Is More Important?

When you are running a business, the success of your business is dependent on your ability to sell your product or service. However, selling and building your business are two different things.

So, between public relations and marketing, which one is more important? It depends on the goal of your business.

If you are a small business owner, your business goals may be different from those of a large company. In this case, marketing is more important than public relations because of the short-term goals of your business.

But, if you are a large company, your brand image can make and break your business. If you do not have a strong brand image, you are more likely to lose money in the long run.

However, if you want to be successful in the long run, you need to invest in both marketing and public relations. This is because your company needs to reach a large number of people, and this can only be done through marketing.

Your company also needs to keep its brand image in the minds of your customers, and this can only be done through public relations.

About the Author

I hope that my post has helped you know more about Startups. Feel free to leave a comment and tag me and I will answer them. Follow my profile to get the latest content I post to stay ahead of the curve.

I am the Founder of Cudy Technologies, a full-stack EdTech startup helping teachers and students learn better. I am also a mentor and angel investor in other Startups of my other interests (Proptech, Fintech, HRtech, Ride-hailing, C2C marketplaces, and SaaS). You can also find me on Cudy for early-stage Startup Founder mentorship and advice.

Connect with me on LinkedIn if you have further questions. Let me know that you are a reader of my Medium posts in your invitation message.

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Alexander Lim

Founder of Cudy Technologies (www.cudy.co), a full-stack EdTech startup helping teachers and students teach and learn better. I am also a mentor and investor.