In considering the function of PR within marketing it is first worth considering “what is marketing?”. Personally I take the broad view – it is anything a company does which is directed toward its customers, so it comes into product specification, presentation, distribution, sales, etc etc. In which case PR is just a small part of that mix, lying alongside advertising, exhibitions, telesales, websites etc.
PR therefore can be considered in comparison with these and in value for many terms can offer tremendous promotional return per pound spent. In fact it is my experience it is the cheapest most cost effective promotion a company can do – I would say that of course but many others have found the same. By considering PR as one of a number of essential promotional steps, a company can then build more expensive activities on top of that.
So we can consider one appropriate structure for our marketing/promotion expressed simply as something like:
- In-house sales
- data sheets/photography
- PR
- website
- Advertising
- Sales engineers
- Exhibitions
In fact this is often experienced as a recurring loop with constant adjustments to accommodate resources, targets or market conditions. See how we can help you move through this process.
