Communications vs Marketing vs PR: What Entrepreneurs Get Wrong | Casual Babble Episode #69

Speaker A: Foreign. This is casual battle. So something that's been a topic on my mind for a while, and this is coming from the perspective of somebody who is at the end of their master's program for digital marketing, who's been, uh, a content marketing strategist for years, who's been in the field for almost a decade now, and more specifically, who in the past couple of years has been pretty hip deep in the entrepreneurial ecosystem that Charlotte has to offer is that there's a phenomena that occurs among people who are outside of certain worlds that are unquestionably going to cross certain worlds or these same worlds in time. And it's a phenomena that, while understandable and why it occurs, is something that should be, uh, addressed and corrected in a timely fashion. And this phenomena is the perceived interchangeability of three particular communications, marketing, public relations. Now, if you're someone who tends to use these words interchangeably, you might be thinking, what's the phenomenon? Those are just three different words for the same thing. The same way that we call a puma, a mountain lion and a cougar. No, it's not the same thing at all. Very much that these three terms actually identify three separate disciplines that, while understandably seem interchangeable, are very different. And so I want to discuss that today on the show and discuss the importance of understanding. While these terms are connected and while they have overlap, which is what results in their perceived interchangeability, they are very different. And you need to know why, especially if you are an entrepreneur who plans on or is currently building a business and you happen to not have a background in these areas. But in a contemporary business, in today's landscape, these areas will be something you cross, inevitably, without question. So let's hop into that firstly by discussing the definitions of how I, myself, a content marketing strategist of almost 10 years, now, breaks these down to make sure their differences are understood anyway. Communications. Communications, by my definition, is the live, actionable moment in which information is being transferred from the brand or the company to the audience. It is the moment that you are sending out a social media post, launching an email campaign, hosting and talking through a live stream or publishing a website. It is that moment in which information that you have cultivated from your experience, your industry, your sector, and you are using it to connect to the audience, either by directly providing said information or by sending content that that is based off of that information. It is that moment of engagement, of connection between you and the people that you're looking to draw in and build into some form of customer base or community. So in instance, communications is the execution and the delivery of information. And there's active communications, which is in the moment as you're doing it, but then there's also passive communications as well. That is the information that you've long since sent out into the ether and is, you know, marinating in the digital landscape and that people find later on. And that is when someone who is interested in you per se is scrolling through your entire TikTok feed to see what kind of stuff you've put out there. It is somebody who is reading your articles on LinkedIn. It's someone who's perusing your website and the older content on the website to ideally, you know, in these, in this day, you know, better understand your products or your services and hopefully find some kind of lead form to submit because they realize they want to purchase something from you. Marketing is the researching of one's industry. It is the act of understanding the audience, their behavior and their interests, what they like, where they go to find it, and therefore where you should go to find them. It's also helping to understand and research how any singular brand or business currently relates to their competitors and or rivals within their same industry and sector. So for instance, how well do you rank on LinkedIn compared to another company that you want to beat out in some form or fashion, uh, compared to your company name? How often is another company name usually inquiry about in a search engine? Additionally, marketing is also the building of the brand itself, not the structure of the business per se. It's about in essence, the cosmetics of the brand. What's the logo, what's the color palette, what's the name? Do you have a slogan? What does your mission statement say? What is your font hierarchy when it comes to your digital writing? You know essentially what kind of voice you should have, what kind of architects, if any, do you want to try to feed into to understand how you want to be perceived by your audience when you inevitably engage with them. So marketing in sense is the, uh, intention and the positioning and the makeup of the company of the brand. Public relations is about establishing relationships with your audience outside of the sales funnel. One could argue that most of the engagement that you do with your audience is meant to help draw and acquire the attention of high quality leads and then funnel them into a tunnel where eventually you or somebody on a team that you have employed in some form or fashion will connect with them. And ideally they will convert into active customers or consumers or clients and you will have, they will provide you revenue. Public relations is outside of that public Relations is about helping to establish an image or a reputation, how well you want to be known, uh, but what you want to be known for. Are you trusted? Are you kind of untrustworthy? Do people feel they understand you? Do they understand you very transparently. So this is where people are going to be looking for chances for leadership in a company to find speaking opportunities, to have the company sponsor an event or some kind of community involvement. And, or, and this is where we tend to hear public relations more commonly in contemporary events is when some kind of incident occurs that can affect the image or reputation of a company. And public relations is involved in how that company, or at least the leadership of that company, then addresses said incident and, and tries to do so in a responsible way. One of the big misconceptions, for understandable reasons with public relations is that it's always about trying to find a way to smooth over something bad without taking accountability. But for those of us in public relations who study it, we understand that it's important, especially nowadays, that any kind of company involved with something scandalous learn to responsibly take accountability, to be, you know, willing to seem responsible to an audience. So that's my essential breakdown. So to recap that real quick, communications is the execution and the delivery of that transferable information from the company to the audience. Marketing is about the positioning and the intent of any content that you develop and send out. And then public relations is about, uh, the external perception, image and reputation of a brand or company. Now, as I said before, before, we're talking about this because there is this phenomena where these terms are a lot of times interchangeably used, and we're talking about why they're different. But also we should understand why this phenomena exists. And this is because, in essence, there's a lot of overlap. There really is no way in which one of them functions that does not at some point or another involve the other two. So for instance, let's say you can argue marketing happens before, during and after communications. Marketing does all the work to decide what should be going out, where, when and why. And it usually, if not always, has to do with where and why your audience is where they are. And that's actually after they've identified who the audience is. So without marketing, communications does not know what to send out. It'll just send out ancillary information that doesn't have any intent or purpose. And without communications, public relations has no way to reach out to the audience to convert and maintain a certain framing for the image and the reputation. There's no way for that to work. And without public relations, marketing wouldn't know what next steps to take regarding new content after the company has engaged with the public outside of the sales funnel. And granted, you shouldn't think of those three terms in just that cycle where marketing, then communications, then public relations and marketing, it even flip flops differently. So for instance, without communications, marketing can't do anything with all the research it's done. There's no engine through which any content can be created and then sent out. Similarly, without communications, public relations has no way of getting out there to the public and engaging outside of the sales funnel. Without, without marketing, public relations would end up trying to provide what comes across more as a blog or an article when it should come across as a press release. So these are all interchangeably connected as far as function. But again, the disciplines are very different and it's important for you the entrepreneur who is looking to build a business but doesn't have a background in these areas. Because when it comes to eventually hiring some form of team, which you will inevitably do to handle these responsibilities when it comes to either in house or a third party contractor. Because you need to understand what skill sets each of these disciplines also provides to those who are out there studying them. So for instance, my original undergraduate degree is communications. As a result, as a communications associate, my skills at the time were about doing the thing, were about creating the content, framing it, sending it out. I'm the person who knew how to create stuff on Canva or through Adobe Creative Suite. I knew how to then write the copy. I knew how to then push it through a social media scheduler. I knew what a social media schedule was compared to other teammates. I knew also how to oversee website content and update things. I knew how to write blogs and articles for different platforms or different, um, different scenarios. I knew how to design visuals for print and stationary materials. For a brand communications or communications associate has the skill set to create the content itself. Everything from going out and getting raw footage to utilizing even more expensive audio, video, hardware, lighting systems, setting up an interview space. They're going to know how to again actually put out the content through different communications channels. Social media, email blasts, website. They're going to be able to uh, facilitate a live stream if that's the route that you take. They're about doing the hands on stuff. In that sense, marketing associates are going to be the ones who know how to understand where a brand currently sits in relation to every other competitor, every other rival within the same industry or sector. They're going to be able to do the research on who your, your rival is that you want to beat out. How are they doing? What are they doing? Why are they doing? They're all about, again, the intent and the positioning of any kind of content that's done. They're the ones who are going to decide what kind of content, what kind of engagement is going to happen. For instance, my master's thesis for my program was an, uh, annual marketing plan. So this was all about figuring out for a case study company what kind of engagements based on who they were, what they bring to the table, what their industry is, what their offer is that they should endeavor to initiate with their audience. How do they want to touch base, how do they want to connect, how do they want to transfer said information? That's marketing. When I say transfer, I mean like deciding what kind of content should even be made to then transfer out to the audience to specify. Marketing is also going to know. A, uh, marketing associate will know how to design the visual, again, the cosmetics of a brand, how to decide on what kind of color palette works best, on what kind of font hierarchy works best, what kind of aesthetic do you want? Do you want something that seems perioded? If that is a word, I'm not sure it's an actual term, or if it seems more modern, contemporary, corporate, casual, those kinds of esthetics. And then what kind of voice does the company have? Is it incredibly authoritative? Is it almost coming off as irreproachable in the kind of information it provides? Or is a voice for your laid back? Is it welcoming? Does it invite conversation and questions on topics? Those kinds of things are the marketing skill set, wheelhouse, public relations. They are the ones who are ready to be front client facing every day of the week. They are the ones who have zero issues. And probably their highest skill set outside of the public relations specialities is interpersonal communication. They are the ones who are going to have zero issue reaching out to venues, vendors, clients, uh, investors, people who are overseeing certain investment funds, things like that, to set up opportunities again for leadership in a company, to go and talk at some kind of event for the company, looking for chances for the company to find an event that resonates with their mission, their work, their background to sponsor, to donate to. What ways in which can they let the public know that the company is going to be doing this big thing. For instance, if my company, ideally, ideally, I'd like to be able to take my company and invest in a really awesome Charlotte event in the future for say, like see the South I would love to be able to have enough revenue to come in so I could reengage the entrepreneurial community and help sponsor an event like Seed the South or an organization like Pitch Breakfast or something larger scale like Global Entrepreneurship Week, things like that, I would love to be involved in that. For me, that's how from a public relations standpoint, I want to be known. Not only do I want my company to be known as the company that loves to work with entrepreneurs, but even early stage entrepreneurs, but also someone who helps to sponsor resources and educational and networking and social opportunities for said entrepreneurs because it all relates. So those are the skill sets you should look for whenever you're looking to hire someone. Now granted, what really helps anyone out when it comes down to hiring someone new is to just be very transparent on what you need and understanding the importance of following through with those expectations. So for instance, if you happen to put a post out there for Indeed or LinkedIn for a communications associate and you list the skill sets needed for this communications associate, and if those patients, if those listed skill preferences align, uh, with just communications, gotta follow through on that. So it wouldn't be fair, for instance, for someone to come in expecting to focus solely on transmitting and engaging actively with the audience, to then have them do a whole marketing plan. They're not going to know how to do that because that's not their wheelhouse. Similarly, and this is not super common just because marketing has marketing communications in particular do has so much overlap, it's hard to not find a marketer who doesn't know typical communications systems. But it can happen. So for instance, likewise, if you were to look for a marketing associate and all the skill sets and responsibilities you listed are just within the marketing wheelhouse. Or you might end up hiring someone who is very skilled in marketing, who knows how to do the research, who knows how to make sure the brand gets a proper audit, to make sure that everything cosmetically, esthetically, personality wise of the company matches with what your mission is, matches what the audience is looking for, and matches how you should be established in your industry or your sector. But they may not know a marketing schedule. They may not know, sorry, a social media scheduler. They may not know web design. They might be able to discuss how a website should look, but they may not know how to log into the back end of Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, member clicks, whatever it is to actually do the editing. They may not even know how to go about setting up some kind of, you know, speaking opportunity for company leadership because public relations Skill sets and marketing skill sets are different. So again, same thing with public relations. You may have someone who has zero issue talking to people on the phone, setting up interviews, finding chances to sponsor some kind of event, yada yada yada, but they may not know how to actually send out a press release. They can let marketing know what needs to be included in a press release, but they may not know how to utilize whatever CRM M you have. Or they may not know how to submit that to, let's say the Charlotte Business Journal. They may not know how to sending that kind of stuff through social media. So it's important to understand the skill set, separate specialities, so that as an entrepreneur who doesn't have these backgrounds, who will need to hire someone either in house or third party to understand what skill sets you need. And so that's when you look into finding ways to create hybridized titles. So instead of just marketing or communications associate, you may need. And granted, it's hard to find a perfect term that really perfectly harmonizes all three, because sometimes you need someone who happens to have all three in their background. Common terms may be like integrated marketing specialist, integrated communications associate, integrated this or that. Personally, I kind of like the idea of an integrated engagement specialist. I think engagement is a great term to include communications, marketing and public relations. I say that because again, the more common terms are something like integrated marketing specialists. But when you use the word marketing and you're trying to hybridize all three, it kind of makes the title seem a bit askewed or biased towards one particular skill set. So that becomes a little bit part of the juggle for you as you look to hire somebody into the teams. But again, this is why it's important to understand the differences between these three areas. Again, understanding their perceived interchangeability is also important. You need to know how they overlap and how they intersect, as any good business owner should. But understanding the differences helps you understand the nuance. And that's actually the reason why I myself went from my undergrad in communications into my Masters of Marketing. Because even though I came into the field with a communications background and I had a lot of foundational understandings on how to actually do things, on how to capture footage, take the footage to an office, produce it into nice framed professional looking content, how to create clips for social media, how to upload a podcast to YouTube, how to do all these hands on things, what I realized over time that I lacked because my communications undergrad didn't include these disciplines or skill sets, is I didn't have a lot of the nuanced understandings that a marketer does. So that's why I went and looked for a great, uh, uh, accelerated program to get my marketing degree, my master's degree in marketing within a year because I didn't want to take too much time out of the field before I could come back and be more effective as a marketing person. So keep those things in mind as you go forward and as you look to build your business and also look for solutions outside of bringing someone in house. You can look for people who are international work at a rate that's more affordable for whatever budget you have work. Personally, I've worked with both kinds of teams and both kinds of teams can be great whether they're international or they're in house. Um, but always look for a chance to get like a free discovery call. There are plenty of companies out there, myself included, who provide free discovery calls to help you kind of figure out what you need, what you can do, and what a good roadmap can look like for your company at ah, whatever current stage it is. So again, to re to review real quick, communications is execution, delivery. Marketing is intent, positioning, reasoning. Public relations is the image, the reputation. They are separate disciplines with separate skill sets, but who have a lot of overlap which creates a perceived interchangeability. Notice I always say perceived interchangeability, not a true interchangeability. If they were truly interchangeable they would be the same thing. But again, it's not like how we call that same kind of wildcat, a puma, cougar and mountain lion. These are three different things that should be understood both in their differences but also why they seem very interconnected. Because they are very interconnected. Not interchangeable interconnected. Hope this helps out. Please reach out to casiano creative@www.casiano creative.com or more immediately, check out the substack bcbabbles.substack.com or the link tree linktree bcbabbles to learn more. Connect with Us we have a form out there describing our commercial sorry content marketing strategy services as well as more gateway services like social media management and article writing. Plus you can also submit our lead form through Honeybook and set up a discovery call whenever you'd like. We'd love to talk to you and see how we can be of assistance. In the meantime, I wish you a great day and have fun in your entrepreneurial pursuits.