Public relations (PR) or marketing (MKT), which one should you do?

Many people who do PR are hovering between the two industries. In most foreign companies, Marketing and PR belong to Corporate Communication (corporate communication), and Marketing intersects with Business Development, and their functions are Supporting Sales; some companies even share the two departments with one Director, and another number Associate Directors vary by industry and specialization. The following concept map:

For most companies, the talent demand for Marketing is greater than that for PR, and there may only be a few people in house PR and IR. The work of traditional PR is relatively simple, which is nothing more than issuing press releases, preparing press conferences, contacting the media, evaluating and summarizing the media effects afterwards, and occasionally doing crisis public relations. PR sometimes shares marketing work: doing market development PPT, helping with offline marketing activities, etc. Since PR receives the most external information and is the unit closest to the media or investors, its work habits are to pursue meticulousness and have a good grasp of formats, so it is most suitable for display, publicity and promotion work. However, marketing activities serve Marketing. From the perspective of the marketing department, public relations means standing at the Media Reception to collect business cards, send out Press Packages, and finally summarize the reports and publish them in the company's internal journals and customers' E-newsletters that month. But in fact, although the marketing department plans the entire event, the public relations department is really busy during the event. This kind of Overlap scenario often happens between PR and Marketing, and sometimes I don’t know which department I belong to.

The "big customers" of public relations are the media. In the Internet+ era, all media are seeking transformation. In addition to content, they are looking for volume & channels (new media platforms have started to be developed, who has Will you miss the opportunity to do promotion?) Public relations also have to get in touch with digital media/new media, learn SEM, and learn HTML. But these online things are originally within the scope of Marketing. The Internet has brought about changes in the public relations industry. Even public relations giants like Weber Shandwick recruit a large number of social media specialists every year, and finally distribute these soldiers to various fields of content, marketing, and public relations.

There's a love-hate relationship between marketing and PR.

I joined a domestic public relations industry WeChat group and looked through the group members' notes. I intuitively felt that it was about marketing and social networking. Many people in the media, including myself, have gradually started Facebook marketing and offline activities.

My previous boss, who worked directly under Li Ka-shing, was a very powerful woman. She taught me that public relations starts with monitoring public opinion, and every article, every keyword, and every KOL is not missed. The first thing I do when I go to work every day is to search through WiseSearch with Hong Kong as the center and Greater China as the radius. The relevant news is compiled into a volume. It is extremely boring but beneficial. Based on my investigation, my boss will regularly recommend people to the CEO who he can contact, and invite them to meet with the CEO for further contact. He will also tell the senior management which media and people to be wary of, and how to respond in a neither humble nor overbearing manner.

She could send a WhatsApp message at 6 a.m. on a weekend to inform us that we would have to deal with possible difficulties from a certain media in the next few days (and then go back to sleep after posting); but she really encountered a difficult reporter. , she spoke in a leisurely and unhurried manner, allowing those little Tabloids reporters to take advantage of smaller and smaller loopholes. The Chief Executive of the SAR sometimes comes to our company to attend events, and she stays with the CEO in case of emergencies. When the company gives back to society and invites disadvantaged groups to participate in some CSR activities, she can communicate cordially with local residents.

She has a background in investor relations and is now responsible for the marketing and public relations of the entire company. She will be more partial to the public relations girls, even if I am a newcomer from mainland China with no qualifications.

She, who is in her fifties, told me one day, "I also want to know more about WeChat in the Mainland." In fact, I really want to say that your hands-on spirit is really worth learning from my subordinates. If those who consider themselves PR but don’t pay attention to basic skills such as writing articles and organizing data, and only know how to play WeChat and Weibo and can’t figure it out, then it’s better to transfer directly. The core of public relations is Creating awareness & branding. Only by staying true to your original intention can you succeed.

I firmly believe that China’s public relations market is still very large. From the government’s perspective, the Tianjin explosion revealed that our senior leaders have almost zero public relations awareness and will only use one-dimensional propaganda. Public opinion work (if the government can accept people like us who work in corporate public relations to jump to it, I think it will be great, I can also become a civil servant!); but in terms of overseas public relations, high-quality foreign investors like Weber Shandwick The public relations company will still take on its own role, Westernizing the entire publicity campaign for the Chinese government when applying for the Winter Olympics. In addition, with the development of the Internet and the rise of start-ups, there will be an increasing demand for high-level government public relations and financial public relations. Even if Internet companies do not have a public relations department, they need to have a government business department first, and listed companies also need it before IPO. PR firm prepares road show. Therefore, (high-quality) public relations based on investigation, communication, and writing will not lose its "market" in the final analysis. For example, a certain cursor has been growing bigger and bigger in recent years (positioning integrated marketing).

Most public relations personnel have their own skills. A senior financial public relations person may have passed the CFA Level 1 exam and work hard to become a secretary to the board of directors; a public relations person who is a journalist can write good manuscripts, plus photography, PS, You may also be good at video editing; your long-term public relations experience has also accumulated a lot of contacts, and you have figured out the tempers of many media. If you leave public relations and work in the market, there will be fewer opportunities to directly use these previous skills, which I think is quite a pity.

Marketing has developed a good sense of the market and a variety of skills. If it is linked to Sales, you can get a lot of commissions. No matter how you do public relations, you are unlikely to make a fortune.

I think that in the future, good public relations must understand the market. It is not the turn of a public relations director who does not understand the market to be the public relations director. And the marketing department, to some extent (only to some extent! To some extent! Let’s talk about 3 again!) has a longer lifeline than public relations, and perhaps the prospects are better than ordinary public relations.

“Through our companies, WPP offers a comprehensive and, when appropriate, integrated range of communications services”——WPP