Why You Need Both Marketing and PR

I like to think of marketing as Nick Jonas and public relations as his younger brother, Frankie. Both Jonas brothers are talented creatives yet we hardly see collaborative work produced by the two.

Marketing and public relations are two fields that exist apart from one another. However, where their paths cross tends to be where the best work is produced. Forbes affirms this by suggesting “stitching together cross-functional teams leads to greater innovation and opportunity.” And this is precisely what I’m advocating for: a team of people across both PR and marketing producing greater quality work and task completion.

Just like Nick and Frankie, we need both marketing and public relations­. Here are three reasons why:

1. Integration Can Boost SEO Efforts

SEO and public relations have the same end goal in mind—to get the right content in front of the right audience. When you combine public relations and SEO efforts, the potential to secure quality backlinks increases.

Public relations professionals have media connections and can help marketers secure links with prominent journalists and publications with in the field, helping ensure all backlinks are of good quality. Public relations professionals tend to focus on earned traffic. However, the importance of organic traffic isn’t lost on them. More and more PR professionals are turning to digital media to get their content seen. This is where marketers can help.

Syncing with SEO and marketing professionals helps ensure that PR content is hitting the goal of getting the right eyes on the right content.

2. Social Ads Can Be Used for PR Measures 

Marketers understand the intricacies of setting up social ads and managing those campaigns. As a result, they feel a pain similar to public relations specialists who endure a business’s reputation dwindling.

Marketers can be left defenseless should their company’s reputation suffer for any reason. A partnership between marketers and public relations professionals could make a difference.

Public relations practitioners are no stranger to reputation management and partnering with marketers gives an additional outlet to save the reputation of their business, too.

Even better, PR professionals working with marketers to create a reputation restoration campaign offers both parties the potential to quickly turn around an unsavory situation.

3. Content Marketing and PR Go Hand-in-Hand

Storytelling is the blood that runs through the veins of PR. The ability to craft and pitch stories is practically second nature. This skill is as natural to marketers as it is to PR professionals.

Moreover, marketers are equipped with targeting tools that can help keep PR stories from becoming moot simply because their stories never reached their intended audience. Marketers have the data to advise PR specialists about the best ways to target intended viewers.

In O’Dwyer’s, Tiller writes, “Think of marketing and PR like peanut butter and jelly or milk and cookies– they just go together.” I can’t help but agree. There’s no need for a marketing vs public relations attitude. An “either/or” mindset is far less productive than the two teams working together.

A method of combining the two departments is the first step towards taking your business to greatness.

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Need more marketing insights? Check this post on how to allocate your marketing budget or the top five skills digital marketers need. 

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