Marketing and Public Relations (PR) are two very important branches of business, which have become so mixed together that sometimes it’s hard to make the difference between them.
If this also gives you a bit of a headache, check out the explanations below, along with some good Bachelor’s you might want to consider from each of the two specialisations.
If you’re soon to be a student and interested in either Marketing or Public Relations, it is essential you make an informed decision before you apply to a Bachelor’s degree.
The bottom line is Marketing focuses on advertising and promoting products and services so as to meet sales estimates, while PR focuses on keeping a good company image and building a relationship with the media.
Looking at details about these differences is going to make your choice much easier.
What is Marketing and what are Public Relations?
Marketing is that part of a business that focuses on customers (existing and potential). The goal of Marketing is to sell products and services. That’s why Marketing uses media and advertising as tools. Marketing works on what specialists call the four P’s: products, price, place, and promotion.
If you want to work in marketing you will need to develop skills like critical and analytical thinking, as well as organisational and interpersonal skills.
Public Relations (PR) deals with the general reputation of a company or organisation. Focusing more on the image of a company, the PR department initiates and maintains good relationships with stakeholders, the media, the community, investors, financial analysts and more.
Working in PR requires communication and writing skills, good public speaking and listening skills, along with the ability to interpret various data. Creativity is a must.
The differences between a Bachelor’s in PR and one in Marketing
A Bachelor’s degree in Marketing will teach you to identify which financial and managerial approaches are most effective in today’s marketing operations.
As a PR student, you’ll get familiar with persuasion techniques, and with the relationship between PR and other communication industries. Here's how the main courses are organised for each degree:
Some of the countries that offer the best range of Marketing undergraduate degrees are:
- Bachelors in Marketing in the United States
- Bachelors in Marketing in Spain
- Bachelors in Marketing in Canada
- Bachelors in Marketing in United Kingdom
- Bachelors in Marketing in the Netherlands
Also check out online Bachelors in Marketing.
Great places to do a degree in PR are:
- Bachelors in PR in the United States
- Bachelors in PR in United Kingdom
- Bachelors in PR in Australia
- Bachelors in PR in Turkey
- Bachelors in PR in Spain
Also check out online Bachelors in Public Relations.
Long story short, marketing has connections with numbers, aka mathematics and finance. PR is more linked with journalism, creative writing, and communications studies.
Some universities that offer very good programmes in both PR and Marketing are:
- Budapest Metropolitan University, in Budapest, Hungary
- London South Bank University, in London, United Kingdom
- University of Twente, in Enschede, Netherlands
- Centennial College, in Toronto, Canada
Marketing and PR are interlinked
The reason why people confuse these two fields is because they are often interconnected. As an example, PR helps the marketing strategy to become more credible, but they both promote the same company or brand. Marketing experts often work together with PR specialists to set up marketing campaigns, and the other way around.
However, the two branches are different when it comes to the purpose of their strategies and their duration. A marketing strategy can last for a short term, but the success of a PR activity can be seen over a longer period of time.
What’s more, marketers always require financial resources for launching a campaign or for advertising; a PR strategy can be completely free (no need for money to get the media to publish your releases).
Marketing vs. Public Relations careers
In terms of job offers, you are more likely to find marketing positions than PR ones within a company. Only major companies with big budgets have a PR. The rest contract PR agencies — the best places to find jobs in PR.
Now that you know what’s all about, you can reflect on which of the types of Bachelor’s degrees is better for you.
The takeaway here is that marketing deals with advertising and is mainly concerned with customers, whereas PR handles press and media. Either way, you need to be a people’s person, creative, and a fan of last-minute deadlines.
Take some time to figure out which career path suits you best, so that you can start looking for the right Bachelor’s programmes.