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What’s the difference between PR and marketing?

The clue to PR is in the title – public relations is all about relationship management, winning friends and influencing people. PR professionals are engaged to maintain a positive image and build a strong association with your brand. It is a discipline that looks after reputation, with the aim of influencing opinion and long-term behaviour.

Think of it as future-proofing. There are many elements of PR, including organised networking, communicating with the media, and directly addressing your audience via social media. All should be part of a planned, integrated and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its public.

Marketing has much shorter term objectives. It’s primarily interested in seeing a fast return on investment through sales – and ROI is often measured in the number of new customers a campaign attracts. It uses a slightly different tool set, including advertising, events and promotions, to get an instant action from the consumer.

Marketeer’s skills complement those in PR, since a successful marketing campaign leverages the awareness and goodwill, even susceptibility, that a well-thought out PR strategy creates.

LGA offers a range of above and below-the-line promotional services, including:

  • PR strategy
  • News release and feature writing
  • Copywriting
  • Media management
  • Social media advertising
  • Copywriting for external newsletters
  • Copy-editing
  • Product launches
  • Social media campaign building
  • Blogging and vlogging
  • Broadcast media training
  • Commercial photography
  • On location and in-studio video production