Guide · 4 min read
How public relations, marketing and advertising differ, how they work together, and which to use first.
People use the words PR, marketing and advertising as if they mean the same thing. In casual conversation that is fine. If you are deciding where to put money, it is worth knowing how they differ, because they do different jobs and fail in different ways.
| Marketing | Advertising | Public relations | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The whole effort to understand, reach and keep customers | Paid messages in space or time you buy | Earning coverage, trust and reputation with the public and the press |
| Who controls the message | You | You, completely | Partly you, partly the journalist or the audience |
| Cost model | Many budgets across many tools | Pay for each placement or click | Pay for expertise and effort, not for space |
| Speed | Varies | Fast. Starts when you pay, stops when you stop | Slower. Builds over months |
| How believable it is | Depends on the channel | Readers know it is paid | Higher, because an independent source is saying it |
| Lasts after you stop paying | Some parts | No | Yes, in large part |
Marketing covers product, pricing, positioning, channels, sales support, content, email, events, advertising and PR. A marketing team decides who the customer is and how to reach them, then picks the tools. PR and advertising are among those tools. If someone says PR is part of marketing, that is a fair description from a business point of view.
With advertising you decide the words, the image, the audience and the timing, and you pay for it. That control is its strength. You can launch a campaign this week, aim it at a specific audience and measure clicks and sales closely.
The weakness is that people know it is an advert. They discount it. And when the spend stops, so does the effect.
PR gives you less control. A journalist writes the article, an expert gives their own opinion, a publication decides the angle. In return you get something an advert cannot buy, which is an independent voice saying your company is worth attention.
It is also slower. Relationships with editors, a consistent founder voice and a body of coverage take months to build. In exchange the results keep working after the campaign ends, and they tend to show up in search.
The simplest way to see it is as two jobs. PR builds trust and gives you something credible to point at. Marketing and advertising take that proof and push it in front of the right people at scale.
Benedicct PR pairs public relations with LinkedIn marketing and influencer marketing for exactly this reason.
Most companies end up using all three. The question is what to do first and how to connect them.
Paid articles that are labelled or obviously paid belong to advertising. PR means a journalist or editor chose to cover you on their own judgment.
Many people think PR is sending press releases. A release is one way to share news. Most good coverage comes from relationships, timing and a strong angle, which is why media mapping matters.
A LinkedIn post from a founder can be PR, marketing or both. What matters is the goal behind it.
If you are weighing how much to spend, how much PR costs in India explains the common pricing models.
Marketing is the whole effort to find and keep customers. PR is one tool inside it, focused on earning trust and coverage from independent sources and managing reputation.
Advertising is paid and you control every word. PR is earned, so you control less, but the result is more believable and tends to last longer.
From a business point of view, yes. Marketing is the umbrella and PR sits within it alongside advertising, content, events and other tools.
If you need customers quickly, advertising is faster. If trust and awareness are the problem, or you are about to raise money, PR gives you credibility that makes other spending work harder.
Yes. Coverage gives ads something credible to point to, and ads spread the proof to more people.
Anjali Sehwwag
Founder, Benedicct PR & Brand Building
15+ years in PR & communications · Journalism graduate · Sheffield Hallam University, England. More about Anjali · LinkedIn
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