Public Relations versus Advertising – Why PR is Different
Public relations versus advertising – Why PR is different by Heidi Richards
When you advertise you pay for the space in print or the time on air. With PR there are opportunities to get coverage that doesn’t cost any money.
You have control over how your dollars are spent and in what medium they appear. With PR, you are dependent on others for placement, based upon space availability, timeliness and dozens of other factors.
With Advertising you can and often should repeat the process. With PR, you generally only get one opportunity to get coverage for a single event, issue or topic.
Advertising is sales focused, PR is information focused.
Advertising has a direct impact on your bottom line, PR may or may not have a direct impact.
Advertising is generally based on hype, and requires more creativity because the public has a tendency not to trust the “source.” With PR there is often a built-in rise in credibility as long as the story is newsworthy.
Advertising depends on the now and PR builds over time.
A successful advertising campaign will have a highly targeted audience and PR will have a broader reach.
Advertising is time- efficient and PR (when done correctly) is time-consuming.
In the next post we will talk about what kind of information is newsworthy.
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