During my 20+ years as a public relations specialist, I have often been asked, “What is the difference between public relations and advertising?” On more than one occasion I have been congratulated on creating “good PR” when my client has actually paid for coverage (advertising). Just as many times, I’ve been told, “I’ve been noticing your advertising in the papers” when they are actually referring to feature stories (earned through a Public Relations effort).
- Paid Message or Free Coverage
The most obvious difference between Public Relations and Advertising (and the easiest way to explain it) is that Advertising is paid placement and media coverage that is earned through Public Relations (e.g. a feature story) is free. - Consumer Perception
With paid advertising, the customer knows that you provided the message with the intention of trying to sell them something—be it an idea or a product. When someone reads a third-party article written about your idea or your product (or sees/hears coverage on television or radio), the message is perceived as non-biased. - Content Control
With advertising, you are controlling the message—the size, what it says, how many times it runs and what medium will send the message. With public relations, you don’t have control over how the media presents your message—or if it will even run at all. The press is not obligated to run your news items or cover your event just because you sent them a news release. - Writing Style
Colorful and descriptive language with a call to action is the most typical form of advertising (the greatest thing since sliced bread!). You want to motivate consumers to buy your product and of course you are going to make it sound as appealing as possible. In public relations, you are writing in a news-style format. Editors are immune to hype and over-statements about products and events. You still have to be creative about the angles you pitch, but you need to be subtle about it. - Consumers or Editors
You aim for your target audience when you create an advertising plan. You tailor your message for the group you are marketing to–be it women, children, 50+, etc. With public relations, you pitch ideas to editors trying to convince them that your event, product, etc. is worthy of a news story or feature article. - Placement
Public Relations does have a few advantages over advertising, and one of them is placement. A sizeable print ad will never (or, hasn’t so far) run on the front page of a newspaper and many newspapers won’t run ads in the upper third of their pages (unless it is a full-page ad). The “news” always gets priority. - Longevity
You are paying for the advertising space, so you can keep your message in the public’s eye/ear for as long as your budget allows. With public relations, you submit a press release for a new product or event once and the pr coverage you generate only runs one time. An editor won’t run your same message three or four times in the their publication—it becomes yesterday’s news. If it’s a hot topic however, you may garner coverage from various departments within the same publication—while the first story may appear in the hard news section, writers from Business, the Living Section, Arts page or even Sports Section may cover the story from their own angle. - Contact With Media
A publication’s advertising representative will be your main contact when fulfilling an advertising campaign. You remain an anonymous player in the company’s marketing plan. With public relations, you represent the company not only with editors, but often times with reporters—through sound bites and written quotes. A good relationship with the media is vital and a complete understanding of the client is essential.
Are the lines sometimes blurred between Public Relations and Advertising? Absolutely. As advertising agencies become more clever, ads sometimes seem like third-party endorsements. When infomercials were first introduced, many consumers thought they were watching a talk show (a venue for public relations) when they were indeed watching a paid advertisement. And when a radio announcer does a live tag at the end of a recorded ad (or reads the entire copy live herself) it may sound like an impartial testimonial, when again, it is paid advertising.
Of course, the best marketing strategy has both elements—Public Relations AND Advertising. They compliment each other and reinforce the message you are relaying on behalf of your client.
Top 5 Questions answered
- What is Digital PR?
Digital PR is a tactic used by brands to increase their online presence through building relationships with key content writers and online journalists to gain ‘press hits’, or citations, and high quality backlinks. Digital PR, when done properly, increases a brand’s reach and visibility and in turn has a positive effect on search engine visibility through effective onsite SEO, driving increased referral traffic.
Digital PR increases trust and credibility, conversion rates and ROI and brand equity, a concept that’s explained nicely in this PR Metrics infographic.
- How to measure the success of Digital PR?
Effective Digital PR can be measured by annotating the PR hits in Google Analytics and measuring how much referral traffic has been gained from those Digital PR hits. By analysing and tracking how well the site’s landing pages rank for targeted keywords also assists in determining the success of a brand’s Digital PR strategy.
Annotate your PR hits in Google Analytics to measure the spikes in referral traffic metric generated by PR hits. Also take note of increases in organic search traffic, as the keywords included in your PR pieces are likely to unlock even more traffic and conversions.
Use the Google URL Builder to tag your PR campaign links. This allows you to get a view on bounce rate, conversion data and all other standard Google Analytics data and metrics.
Use Open Site Explorer or similar tools (Majestic SEO) to monitor your website’s backlink profile. Effective Digital PR should result in your site gaining additional backlinks.
Use SharedCount to track URL shares, likes, tweets and more, of your press hits to gauge the success of your hits and content on social media.
- What makes a good PR hit?
A good PR hit is a hit within a site that has a high domain authority and that includes a natural link to the brand’s site with relevant brand anchor text included. The key to a great PR hit is to make sure that the reader is directed to something he/ she is expecting to see. How you pitch your content to online journalists is the key to getting your message conveyed in the way that you intend it to be received. - What is the difference between Digital PR and Traditional PR?
Traditional PR uses high circulation, readership, and viewer ratings to determine who to approach when selling in content to media houses and publishers. Even traditional PR’s who claim to ‘do digital’ still use this this method.
Digital PR doesn’t exclusively focus on the number of followers on social media sites and readers before approaching them. It also focuses on evaluating domain authority and non-paid opportunities for link citations. The success of Digital PR is, as a result, more measurable than Traditional PR.
- How does Digital PR fit into my marketing strategy?
Digital PR should follow closely with your SEO and digital marketing strategies for maximum effect. However, Digital PR can strengthen weaker landing pages and increase the site traffic of slower moving stock – even if it does not directly follow your overall marketing objective. When used with SEO, Digital PR can take advantage of key search term trends and maximise coverage on what people are already searching for on the Internet.