Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Public Relations versus Marketing Part 2: Every job creates an impression

In the past, marketing focused on sales and public relations focused on internal and external publics. Marketing focused on one-way outbound communication of a message promoting sales. Public Relations focused on inbound and two-way communication, or interaction with publics, working to find out what the audience wants and finding ways to give it to them.

But today I tend to look at marketing as an overarching theme for sales, which focuses on the product, and public relations, which focuses on relationships. In fact, many sales and marketing professionals are finding that people are demanding that they be put before the product. Thus, many sales people/marketers are spending more time producing information unrelated to their products than they are spending promoting their products.

When you think about it, public relations has a part in every person’s life and in every person’s job, including that of the marketer, sales person, or advertisement manager. Every interaction, every ad creates an impression. While public relations can be used to promote sales, it can escape sales. Sales, however, cannot escape public relations. Marketing is the art of impressions.

2 comments:

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  2. You are so right about public relations in every person's life. In fact, the same is true of the other components of marketing, as well.

    For example, your LinkedIn profile advertises the value you can provide, with the goals of landing a chance to pass along advertising/sales material (your resume) and of landing an interview.

    During the interview, you use public relations to establish a personal relationship and to learn more about the position and the employer, as well as sales to convince the employer to buy your value.

    Afterwards, you use public relations to find opportunities to create more value and to manage your image in the eyes of your manager and coworkers.

    (Nice graphic. I should have looked at it more closely. I deleted my previous comment and replaced it with this one.)

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