Even though marketing and public relations professionals have increasingly taken over similar tasks, too often there is still a separation of disciplines that result in a company delivering two different messages.
This separation occurrence presents a problem when success is dependent on these two professions working together to portray one message. Integrated marketing communications is a common and effective approach that solves this problem by employing best practices to have these two professions work as a team.
Below are 5 ways that marketing and public relations can yield better results through collaboration:
- Be Concise – Specific tactics and functions within the sales funnel need to be attributed to both public relations and marketing. When everyone focuses on their specific roles, it allows a company to accomplish their main goal more efficiently than it would with one overall plan.
- Centralize Authority – Workers need a clear point of authority in order to stay organized and on track. Good management requires centralized authority that creates cross-functional teams, which in turn, creates unified branding and messaging across all of the company’s business activities.
- Be Consistent – Establish a common framework for your workers to follow. By doing so, you integrate and synchronize all involved to a central plan, with a consistent message.
- Stay Customer Focused – Constantly gather information about your customers, understand their evolving needs, encourage customer retention, and debrief after customer engagements to maintain a strong relationship with customers.
- Measure thoughtfully– There needs to be accountability in the form of measurable KPIs in order to judge your marketing and public relations effectiveness. If there are metrics that represent contributions to the collective objectives, goals can be managed more effectively.
For public relations and all other full-service integrated marketing, please contact Sagefrog Marketing Group.
