An age-old question: Are PR and marketing the same thing?
Maybe a not-so-age-old answer: Nope.
You can envision marketing as one giant umbrella. Under this umbrella are various sub-sections of the marketing field, aka various ways of executing your marketing goals. Sub-sections of marketing include social media, content marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), and – you guessed it – PR.
In high-level terms, you can categorize most marketing into one of the following categories:
- Paid Media
- Owned Media
- Earned Media
PAID MEDIA
OWNED MEDIA
EARNED MEDIA
There’s a lot of overlap between the various fields of marketing, and no individual piece lives in a vacuum. As with anything, PR works best when it’s aligned with your other marketing efforts. After all, isn’t everyone working towards the same goal?
Yes and no. On a macro level yes, everyone is working towards the same big picture success metrics (often termed Key Performance Indicators, KPIs). But when you dive into the nitty gritty, there are some key differences in shorter term KPIs for marketing and PR teams.
THE GOAL OF MARKETING
The goal of marketing is to create demand for our products and services. Sounds high-level? That’s because it is. Marketers use various tools and tactics to stimulate demand and trigger a response from potential customers, directing them to your products and services.

THE GOAL OF PR
The goal of public relations is to create brand awareness, brand love, and building / maintaining brand reputation. A PR professional strategically finds organic (earned media) ways to accomplish these goals by communicating effective messaging with your target audiences. Though you can have short-term wins, PR is a long-term game and it’s ultimate value is derived from maintaining (and refreshing) your brand’s reputation, with quality media placement that drives customers – and sales – for years to come.

Though you may see more short-term wins from quantifiable marketing efforts, PR is the gift that keeps on giving. As a business you should always be looking ahead to what’s next, keeping the long-game in mind. Good PR helps you move seamlessly and successfully into your future, telling your story and growing invaluable trust with your customers along the way.
Want to better align and optimize your marketing efforts? Increase brand awareness? Have more questions? Shoot us an email at hello@rebelcoastmedia.com or via the form below; we’d love to chat!