Two distinct disciplines, two distinct definitions, one age-old debate. No, we’re not talking about butter and margarine.

What is the difference between public relations and advertising? Here is one of the most basic explanations you’ll ever find:

Public Relations is what others communicate about you, your business, your client, etc. Advertising is what you communicate.

Both can play critical roles in your business’ strategic marketing communications. There are two key factors to consider in evaluating the differences: Control and credibility.

Let’s explore these concepts as they apply to each discipline:

Defining Advertising
“Knowledge is power,” as the saying goes, and with advertising you have power over the message (knowledge) that’s distributed to your existing and potential clients. You can create and control the brand of your business.

Take a moment and think of the “leaders” in an industry, say apparel or manufacturing.
How many of the businesses that come to mind have you seen advertising? My guess would be the majority of them.

That’s because successful ad campaigns help establish a brand identity (and hopefully preference) through repetition. Have you ever seen a commercial just once?

The most effective advertisements are the ones that are relevant, concise and creative. Your clients are bombarded with messages around the clock, from billboards and brochures to pop-ups and print ads. Your business needs to stand out in a crowd.

Today’s successful marketing experts are augmenting the control they have in advertising with the credibility of public relations and search engine marketing and optimization to the tune of improved visibility and increased revenues.

Relating to Your Public
Public relations is a broad term, often misused as an all-encompassing expression for anything related to marketing and advertising. The roots of effective PR are storytelling and relationships – think Public Relationships.

The goal of public relations is not to force feed your messages or services, but rather to make them available to your existing/potential clients in a manner and form they wish to receive them. In doing so, your messages and services will come across as authentic and credible.

Public relations is a conversation, and as with any conversation, it can take place through word of mouth, news stories, gatherings and events, and much more. Information is always more believable when you know and trust the source.

Increasingly today, the conversation is taking place on the internet. Social media web sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, in addition to dynamic company websites, are the new venues for B2B communication. You have a golden opportunity to establish an ongoing dialogue with your clients through these media.

As with any conversation and relationship, trust is paramount to credibility. Don’t thrust your business into the conversation like the employee who’s had one too many drinks at the company party – who believes that guy? Mosey up to the crowd you want to talk to and make your business available for conversation. How do you do that?

Introduce yourself (advertising) and engage your business in the conversation (effective public relations, Internet marketing and website optimization).

Association of National Advertisers
Public Relations Society of America

Has your business begun investing in internet marketing and search engine optimization to stay in front of consumers? If not, it should. Immediately.

Changing Consumer
Before you dismiss the internet as a youthful playground, try thinking of it as a base of business. Consider that while 87 percent of 18-29 year-olds have used the internet (to be expected), the number remains high as age increases, with 82 percent of 30-49 year-olds and 71 percent of those in the 50-64 age group having used the internet, according to Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Pew Internet & American Life Project also reports that:

• 81 percent of internet users have researched a product on the internet that they are considering purchasing
• 79 percent are confident they’ll make the right purchasing decision by researching on the internet first
• 71 percent have bought something online

Another bone to gnaw on – the number of internet users increases exponentially with income and level of education, an indicator that those most likely with disposable income are the ones using the internet.

The facts are irrefutable: The internet has cemented its place in the consumer purchase cycle. Are you ahead of the ball or thinking, “Uh oh, time to catch up!”?

If the meat of your online PR campaigns consists of newswires, press releases and “cost-efficient advertising” (translation: web banners), you’re likely the latter.

Take into account how other marketing specialists are investing in public relations and the internet going forward.

Investing in the Internet
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) polled attendees of its 2008 Annual “Masters of Marketing” Conference in October about their marketing budgets and plans going forward in 2009.

Following is a sample of the results:

• 67 percent reported they “will spend more” or “spending will be constant/no changes”
• Of that 67 percent, 26 percent plan to increase spending by more than 10 percent
• Attendees included client-side marketers, media, creative and public relations agencies, corporate marketing specialists and others

The trial period is over. Internet marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), keywords and key phrases analysis, and web copywriting services are the new ingredients to the successful marketing plan. Throw in a couple cups of public relations and bake for 3-6 months. Success tastes good.

We have all heard, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” In advertising, it’s what everyone lives by. There is an “old” kid back on the block that’s ready to rule the neighborhood again however: Written word. Somewhere, Shakespeare must be smiling.

At the beginning of this decade a program called Flash came out and allowed designers to do wondrous things like animation of buttons, scrolling messages, etc. Everyone had to have a “Flash” site to have the most visually interesting presentation. While these websites looked great, they were in a fixed picture format with embedded text, meaning the search engines couldn’t read them. This in turn means that the site won’t rank worth a darn on a search engine like Google.

I am shocked when someone like a land developer who depends on national inquiries through random search builds a Flash website. If it can’t be searched, they are dependent on marketing the URL through traditional means like national radio and television advertising. Very expensive!

Words trumped photos the minute search engines built their model on scanning html website text for relevance. The more quality written content on your site the better it is for your searchability. Whether it’s a FAQ, blog, technical paper, case study or news release, one word may now be worth a thousand pictures!

These people would often hear me out and say politely, “we don’t have a need for your services presently.” The good news is, enough said yes to allow us to build one of the strongest multi-disciplined marketing firms in the southeast. Trying these tactics today would most likely lead to dramatic failure. Due to the “lean” operation, no one has time to take meetings from potential vendors; they happily hide behind their voice mail and don’t return calls unless they know you.

When search engines refined Internet searches they killed the traditional interpersonal sales model. Time starved prospects now “Google” until their specific needs are fulfilled.

This represents a paradigm shift that many in the business community don’t quite “get”.
Prospects are now bought, not sold.

What I mean is they are cruising the web looking for content, if they don’t find it in the first search, they refine the search until they get the appropriate answer to their problem.

For a company trying to attract customers who are now “bought” through random search you must appeal to their sensibilities with outstanding web content. They need to know you are the expert by reading case studies and expert articles. They will read during the “soft shopping” experience on your website, to determine whether your company has the correct product mix, message and most importantly credibility. Your website now has to do the job of new business development. The nice thing about this scenario is it shortens the sales curve. They searched you, they found you, they are interested, and they contact you in person as an educated, motivated buyer. In a nutshell, bury the cold calling and make sure your content is strong enough to be “bought” into by prospects.

A Web site’s keywords can be defined as the key to a code, or be used in a reference work to link to other information. Most companies have identified their Web site’s keywords and use them throughout the Web site. While this is good Internet marketing, a company can see more traffic to their site if they constantly monitor the keywords analytics of their site.

A Web site’s keywords should be organic, in that they could change or be added/deleted at any moment. Studying your Web site’s statistics should not include just hits and page views, but also the words and phrases being used to find your site. Keeping the content dynamic using search engine optimization copywriting is especially important for a company news page (if your company’s site does not have a news page, correct that immediately). The news page is best way to implement new keywords into a Web site, using search engine optimization services.

Last year, a U.S. company that manufactures microwave ovens had a defective model that was potentially a fire hazard. The company wanted to direct their customers to the proper recall information. So, the company studied words that were being searched with regards to the defective model (defective microwave, faulty microwave, microwave fire, etc) and used those terms in the news release they distributed regarding recall information. When users entered these phrases for search, the recall news release came up near the top in the organic search, thanks to search engine optimization copywriting. The company also posted the release on their Web site, an Internet marketing strategy, which in turn drove traffic to their site.

Studying your Web site’s analytics should be a weekly exercise. Your Web site is the centerpiece of your marketing effort, and in order to stay dynamic, it must be treated as such.

It’s hard to believe that the video sharing Web site YouTube is over three years old. It’s also hard to believe that the general public still thinks the largest video sharing Web site is just videos of kids doing crazy skateboard stunts or clips from movies. YouTube has become a popular landing spot for videos from the business world as well. Everything from instructional videos to equipment demonstrations can now be found on YouTube.

Quantcast, an Internet rating service, estimates that YouTube has more than 60 million unique viewers per month. In January 2008 alone, YouTube had more than 27 million business-related searches.

Savvy businesses are using YouTube as a tool for search engine optimization (SEO) by linking the videos to their Web site. This Web site marketing strategy integrates videos directly into regular Google organic search results. If a business posts a video that ranks well in YouTube, chances are the video will be injected into Google’s regular organic search results.

Online video can be an essential part of a company’s Web site marketing strategy. By using SEO copywriting, keywords can be added during video encoding, as well as the initial video creation. A SEO copywriter’s description of the video is key, and not necessarily the brand or all the keywords found in a company’s Web site. Success in online media hinges on “storytelling” and online video is a perfect forum for doing so.

Online video can be one of the most effective tools in a Web site optimization strategy, yet few companies are doing it. Implementing this tool will keep a company’s Internet marketing plan diversified and ahead of the competition.

1. There are currently over 215 million Internet users in the US alone (71% of the population). This is a growth of 125% from 2000-2008.

2. Generation X, Y, and the Millenials all turn to the Internet first.

3. Interruption based marketing is a thing of the past.

4. Internet Marketing provides measurable results.

5. Analytics programs show you what’s working, what’s not, and where your leads are coming from.

6. Internet Marketing is more cost-effective than traditional forms of marketing.

7. Strategies such as SEO lead to increased pre-qualified traffic to your website.

8. Press releases and articles released online can get picked up by hundreds of other websites.

9. Internet Marketing Specialists can help your website rank in the top 10 search results on leading search engines.

10. Tough economic times demand smarter marketing.

Gotham Strategic Marketing made a quantum leap forward this spring with the introduction of X-Factor Web Marketing. Many of our clients understood immediately the value of adding this innovative service that blends public relations and search engine optimization to their marketing mix.

The Internet has changed our lives, so much in fact, that this period in time will be known as the Internet Age by future generations. Much like the Industrial Age changed the face of our nation, the Internet Age has turned many of our preconceptions inside-out in less than 15 years!

One area that’s changing rapidly is marketing/advertising. Companies have shifted away from thinking of a Website as a “necessary evil” and begun to view it as the core of their marketing program. Today, most everyone shops a Website to assess fit and credibility before engaging in a personal conversation with a representative. Reflect on your last new car purchasing experience. Did you just show up on the lot? Or did you build the car, accessorize it and get an idea of price prior to visiting a showroom?

The Pew Internet and American Life Project reveals two astounding facts: 79 percent of Internet users are confident that they will make the correct purchasing decision by gathering information online before buying. Secondly, in 2000 only 35 percent of Americans used the Internet for product-related search. In 2007 that number rose to 60 percent!

X-Factor Web Marketing blends public relations with search engine optimization services on a monthly basis to promote companies and their websites. Results are tracked through Web measurement and online/print clipping services. Our goal is to help your company rise to the top of search engine rankings, as well as to increase your sales and visibility on the internet.