What are the benefits of advertising and public relations? And what’sthe difference? This is the fourth episode in which I help you answerthose questions, and continue to share what I know to help you tellthem apart.

My ultimate goal is still to help you make informed choices when you’redeciding how to integrate public relations and advertising into yourmarketing plan.

Yes, public relations is always less expensive than advertising. This maysurprise some of you – but a Facebook campaign can quickly add upto tens of thousands of dollars.

Obviously, if you’re just starting out and have a newly launched product outthere, your budget won't let you do that kind of advertising campaign– it wouldn’t make sense. However, public relations and socialmedia are within your reach.

At NATA PR, which I founded more than 20 years ago, I’ve seen plentyof trends and schools of thought emerge along with social media. Someclients believed that influencers were the new, and the onlyworthwhile, brand ambassadors. However, every day we still seeproducts and companies partnering with the artists, athletes andcelebrities who often make headlines in mainstream media.

Others who would swear only by the Facebook ad, which of course generatesthem sales, hadn’t figured out that investing in their reputationwould probably have helped them last longer.

Since the advent of social media, the lifecycles of promotion fashions andtrends have sped up considerably. That’s why you may have heard of360o campaigns, which simply means getting yourself seen and promoted onseveral platforms, not just investing everything in one likeFacebook, even if it’s very profitable for you in the short term.

New brands can launch cheaply online and, if these young companies alsosucceed in getting talked about, they can quickly start to eat intoyour market share.

But let’s get back to our point. We're talking about spending here,specifically how much less public relations can cost you thanadvertising. During the pandemic, when many people believed theInternet and online sales would continue to skyrocket, some of ourclients hired digital marketing agencies to continue boosting theironline results. Some of those agencies had even recommended that ourclients take the budget they had for public relations and give it tothem.

So I crunched some numbers to find out how much the most recent onlinead campaigns by that agency had cost versus our PR results, e.g. thecost of acquiring new subscribers to their newsletter vs. a publicrelations campaign. Some of you will tell us that it's not the samething, and we agree 100% – but here are the results:

It cost our client between $5 and $10 per new subscription, per emailacquisition. As for our reputation campaign, it figured in cents:$0.005 per potential reader/listener/fan.

Several big brands that retain the services of NATA PR are investing solelyin two areas: social media and public relations.

Naturally, there's no magic formula that works for everyone all the time. But wehave convincing case studies and, as I like to repeat, largecorporations don't hire a public relations agency just for fun –but to get results.

So it’s up to you to include PR in your marketing plan. If you want to discuss it in person with us, get in touch now at www.natapr.com.

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