Marketing and Communications Can Work Together
March 5, 2007 by Eric Eggertson
Filed under Marketing
There isn’t an invisible line separating marketing and communications, so stop looking for one.
A lot of what supports PR also supports marketing and customer service. A lot of what helps marketing improves an organization’s reputation, or communicates its value and benefits.
PR can drive sales. Marketing can cement relationships. One coin, two sides. The resulting mutation is marketing communications.
They work together best when they are consciously linked.
They undercut each other when they operate in isolation.
If your public relations and marketing are headed in different directions, you need to make sure the people managing these functions understand the interdependencies, and the opportunities to capitalize on each others’ successes.
Wikipedia provides a passable definition of marketing communications:
"Marketing communications is focused on product/produce/service as opposed to corporate communications where the focus of communications work is the company/enterprise itself. Marketing communications is primarily concerned with demand generation, product/produce/service positioning while corporate communications deal with issue management, mergers and acquisitions, litigation etc."
"All strategies, tactics, and activities involved in getting the desired marketing messages to intended target markets, regardless of the media used."
" In the old world, product marketing and marketing communications were generally kept separate; one develops product, the other communicates to the customer with expertly crafted messages. Now, many companies are looking for ways to include the customer as a participant not just on the marcom side of the house, but on the product side as well. In the end, it’s all ‘communication,’ and marketers will need to retool themselves to meet the new challenges."
The MarcomWiki has several more definitions to choose from.
Tags: marketing communications, marcom, public relations, business, companies, sales, customer service
Thanks for including me in this discussion, Eric.
I do believe that co-design is the next big thing in marketing. Only question is how quickly it will happen.
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Customers often know best. They can also have some really stupid ideas. The trick is to be able to sort out the great product ideas they have without falling into the trap of giving over your product design to them in its entirety.
Amen to that. Sooner or later, we’re not going to be one or the other – just communicators. I think.