PR v Digital Marketing

So, you’ve got a marketing budget and you’re wondering how to spend it. You know that both PR and digital marketing are important for building your business, but you’re not sure which one is best for you. This guide will help clarify the differences between these two types of marketing so that you can make an informed decision about what kind of campaign would work best for your company.

What is PR?

PR, or public relations, is the process of building relationships with journalists and bloggers to get your brand in front of them. This can be done through a variety of methods including sending press releases, hosting events and workshops at conferences, and even arranging interviews on podcasts like ours! PR involves communicating with these influencers so that they know who you are and what you’re doing. The goal is to get a journalist or blogger interested enough in what you’re doing for them to share it with their audience. If a journalist writes about your product or service, then great—you’ve achieved coverage!

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is a strategy that uses digital channels to reach a target audience. It often involves the use of channels like search engines, social media, display advertising, and email marketing.

Digital marketing can be used to target specific audiences based on their demographics (e.g., location, age/gender) or other interests (e.g., hobbies). It can also be used to reach global audiences by using online tools such as live streaming or email campaigns.

Where do digital marketing and PR overlap?

Both digital marketing and PR are used to promote a product or service. Both are used to build awareness, create community, create brand and reputation, create voice and conversation around your product or service.

The main difference lies in the form of media used: digital marketing uses social media channels like Facebook ads or Google AdWords; PR uses traditional media like print publications (magazines), radio interviews and television commercials. However, PR is now seen across several digital mediums such as online press releases and podcasts.

Therefore, there will be more of a crossover now with digital PR. For example, an online press release can be shared on social media channels and used to boost SEO. A podcast can be repurposed across multiple digital marketing formats, such as social media, embedded in email marketing campaigns, placed on blogs etc.

What metrics are measured in PR?

PR professionals are often looking at things like how much of a noise they made amongst journalists, how much positive press they get, how many places their brand was featured in, how many speaking gigs their directors got and how many awards they’ve won. They also like to measure their attendance at events such as conferences and webinars.

At the end of the day, PR is all about whether people are talking about your brand or not.

What metrics are measured in digital marketing?

In digital marketing, usually the metrics go a lot more granular. The beauty of digital marketing is that we have access to so much data and can analyse to our heart’s content.

There are so many metrics that digital marketers measure, but typically, these will include:

  • Social media followers and engagement
  • Open rates and click throughs in email campaigns
  • Website traffic
  • Return on ad spend

Why one is right for me? PR or Digital Marketing?

At the end of the day, it really depends on what you need. Everyone needs PR of some kind, but they often don’t think they do. Also, traditional PR can be intimidating for many companies. It’s extremely costly to take out a billboard or TV ad and you gotta have connections with journalists to be able to get media coverage too.

However, you can start small – monitor your online coverage, send out some press releases, get featured on a few podcasts or run a webinar.

Digital marketing, however, is usually much more accessible to everyone. It’s free and easy to do things like social media and send emails to prospective clients. So that’s why most companies start with this.

A combination is absolutely ideal and will produce the best results. If in doubt, drop us a message about what you want to achieve and we can help you produce a plan that will be best for your marketing goals.