I have recently engaged in a marketing strategy workshop with one of our clients and have realised that there were still people around the boardroom table thinking there is a clear line between PR and marketing.
Still having this idea that these two functionalities within the business has different purposes and need to function separately is worrying. The reason being is that both these tools are responsible to forward all marketing strategies.
A business need to carefully align, implement and measure both communication methodologies as part of an unified effort.
Not doing so, the business will be sending out mixed and even misleading messages that can harm the goal of the four P’s in marketing:
Product
Price
Place
Promotion
Looking at marketing, we have the four P’s as goal and it defines the overall marketing goal of what product, price, place and promotion need to be kept in mind when communicating to the external client.
Advertising is the paying mechanism for this message(s) to reach your potential client, whereas PR is the key to influence the consumer to read and understand the message in order to go into action, buying the product.
Branding is also part of this mix and blur the lines even more as it defines the company or product culture and personality that is key to influencing.
Defining marketing, PR, advertising and branding in this manner, it is clear that the lines need to be blurred to make your marketing message heard within the load noise the current world of marketing through different, easy accessible channels are creating.
Content is key, but integrating the content across the channels of your marketing strategy is even more important as it create consistency that will make your marketing message stand out between the noise.
Use these 5 steps to blur the lines:
- Define your marketing strategy with the four P’s underlined with a clear distinctive understanding of the goal.
- Define the advertising channels to broadcast the specific marketing message and make sure that you utilize the correct advertising channel for the correct segment of your defined audience within each channel. (Blog for another day)
- Bring you PR strategy into play, aligning the same marketing message across the internal and external client campaigns to establish consistency and easy influencing.
- Align branding so that the personality of the product reflects the businesses culture and establish reassurance to the client moving them to purchasing. (Remember branding is not only logos, taglines and corporate colours – it is a key element to the marketing mix.)
- Be consistent ticking all the boxes when you launch your marketing campaign. Blur the lines and power up with a super marketing mixer.
Forever inspired!
JJ van Niekerk
Creative Director: Forever Friday
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