I’ve spent the last seven years working closely with Public Relations professionals and marketing-communications people across various disciplines. From young ones fresh out of school, to experienced ones who hold mid-level positions, to seasoned vets who have founded successful practices or lead corporate and brand communications at large corporations.
One thing I’ve found particularly common amongst many PR folks, from entry level to mid-management level, is the general lack of understanding or appreciation for what Marketing really is. Or to be more specific, where PR fits within the broader Marketing Mix.
It is not enough for a PR person to only understand the ‘Communications’ aspect of Integrated Marketing Communications –– which is only a part of ‘Promotions’, which in turn is only a fourth of the ‘4 Ps’ from classical Marketing Mix theory.
Communications alone is never enough
Now, it is almost impossible for the I-only-know-communications type of PR person to thrive in the era we are in. More than ever before, there is now a greater need for integration across various marketing disciplines and functions. More so, we are in an era where organisations (the clients) are looking more for expert advisors, solution providers and competent consultants who will deliver on business objectives and help them succeed in various areas of brand building.
Clients need more than just an ‘agency’ to offer tactical activities and the era of advertising-only, PR-only, events production-only, research-only, media buying-only and digital-only service providers is long gone. This has been a growing trend for a good number of years, and young talents in PR today that are not actively working to develop general marketing capabilities are doing themselves a disservice.
For individuals working in any of these specialist marketing/communications agencies, being renowned as a well-rounded Marketing Professional, rather than just a ‘PR Professional’ for example, is a more sure way to becoming indispensable to clients’ businesses beyond just comms.
Further evidence of this shift can be seen in the evolution of the suite of services offered by traditional consulting companies like Accenture, BCG, McKinsey and co, who are slowly but surely creeping in to take food from the plates of traditional marketing communications agencies, including those offering primarily PR services.
PR is great, but the client needs more
And the reason for this is simple, Brand Managers and their bosses’ bosses are looking for one-stop shops where all their marketing needs can be met. And this is true now more than ever in the industry.
Why send six RFPs: for creative, PR, digital, research, media, events, etc, when you can find two very strong marketing or business consulting firms with a building-full of well rounded Marketers, strategists and creatives, who can manage a brand’s needs from A to Z and deliver results? It’s a no brainer, really.
For PR, it’s not like the practice itself is dying. No, far from it. It’s just that a new breed of smart business consultants are taking on big budget PR briefs from brand marketers and executives, leaving the traditional PR agencies scrambling for crumbs and leftovers.
It has thus become extremely important for PR people to focus on becoming more of Marketing Generalists than PR or Comms specialists. Generalists are people who have a variety of experience and expertise. They can connect dots where others don’t see a link.
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If a PR pro isn’t a Marketer, then who is?
Let’s do a quick refresher on what Marketing really is.
Marketing, according to the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) UK, is “A management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”
In other words, a Marketer is someone who can help manage the process of identifying, anticipating and satisfying the needs of customers in a manner that is profitable to the organisation. If your understanding of your work does not match this, then maybe you are NOT a marketer.
Let’s take a look at the original Marketing Mix elements which define the various tactical options available to marketers:
Product: the thing of value that was created for customers’ satisfaction
Place: the channels and routes through which the product meets the customer
Price: the agreed value placed on a product / the utility derived from the product by a customer
Promotion: the ‘story’ we tell to convince customer of the value of the thing we created
You will notice that ‘customer’ is at the heart of the definition of every P!
Sadly, for many practising PR people, especially younger talents, only one of the 4 Ps is understood, i.e. Promotions. And even within that ‘Promotions’ space, many still shy away from embracing the full IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) spectrum, which goes beyond mere Advertising or PR or Events, but constitutes a smart blend and integration of various marketing-communications disciplines, including research which should be at the heart of every decision-making process in marketing.
Be a PR pro, but not ‘one-fourth of a Marketer’
Being a PR and/or an advertising specialist alone still leaves you with 3 whole Ps short, making you only one-fourth of a Marketer. And ignoring the other 3 Ps means you can only understand and have the capacity to solve only one-fourth of your client’s overall marketing needs. So, where does that leave you in today’s age of consolidation?
As PR people, we need to ask ourselves:
What do I know about product development and product management?
What do I know about pricing and the science behind customer’s responses to price?
What do I know about distribution and channels and the customer journey?
How can we sit down with, and intelligently advise a client who has broad training and experience in Brand Management and Marketing, if we only know a quarter of what her job is about? This is exactly where the problem lies for most PR people today. We do not know enough about Marketing to effectively support the objectives and goals of the clients of this day and age.
I am convinced that it is easy for every great marketer to understand, practise, or appreciate good PR. But it is not every great PR person that can automatically understand, practise or appreciate good marketing, until they get requisite training in the core principles and theories of modern Marketing.
This is the problem we need to fix so that individual PR practitioners and consulting firms can make themselves more useful and indispensable to the Brand Managers and CMOs and CEOs that sign the cheques we so desperately seek.
PR is only a subset, of a subset of Marketing, and a lack of understanding for, or appreciation of the full scope of the Marketing practice will leave a PR professional ill-equipped to deal with the complex needs of today’s global brands.
This article first appeared in the 2020 edition of Nigeria PR Report.
You can download the report for free at nigeriaprreport.com
