| As a corporate communication professional, you’re probably familiar with the infamous tension between PR and marketing. In many corporate settings, these departments see themselves as separate and follow their own independent goals. |
It’s true – marketing departments exist to generate sales, business growth and profit, while corporate comms handle PR tasks, in addition to reputational and crisis management. But seeing these two teams as having no overlapping functions glosses over a lot of nuances. After all, both departments exist to guarantee a company’s sustainable business development – and achieving this goal is much easier when everyone is on the same page.
In this article, we’ll explain why it’s time to ditch the age-old conflict between PR and marketing and what checkboxes your company needs to tick to make a collaborative relationship the norm.
The future of corporate communication
The corporate communication job description is changing – and PR makes up just one component of the daily work routine. With countless digital tools in the picture, and increasing expectations by audiences around the world, a great PR strategy is no longer defined by just traditional media outreach and nailing your PR distribution.
What matters more is being able to juggle the many tasks that protect your company’s reputation – from communicating with stakeholders via social media platforms to reporting on sustainable impact and sharing it authentically with the public.
If that’s not already difficult enough, another challenge complicates things further – information overload. Audiences are confronted with overwhelming amounts of information and content, making it difficult for companies to set themselves apart. Only by telling inspiring stories, that follow a coherent narrative and are continuously optimised to be impactful, can you stand out from your competitors.
Both PR and marketing play an important role in this. Fostering a culture of learning and exchange between your company’s corporate communication and marketing teams not only safeguards the organisation’s reputation but also helps it stand out from its competitors.
Breaking the bad habit: us vs. them
The need to bridge the gap between PR and marketing isn’t breaking news, and some companies have already taken the first steps to get there. In fact, a 2018 report by the Conference Board showed that financial services companies have the highest tendency to unite corporate communication and marketing under the same leader, with 54% of companies reporting such an arrangement.
That being said, creating formal processes to encourage collaboration between corporate comms professionals and marketers remains difficult. Let’s use an analogy to illustrate the status-quo in many European companies.
Picture a newsroom: Many individual journalists work on different beats (topics) for varying news desks, from politics or economics to crime or entertainment. Every day, they receive the same selection of current events (narratives). After reviewing everything, each desk selects the news they want to report on, reworking them with an angle that is relevant or interesting to the readers of their beat.
Many traditional corporate settings function the same way. Instead of selecting their daily news, companies create a general narrative. Individual departments then readapt it to fit the needs of their own audiences or accomplish their own goals. While the general narrative may remain the same, the communication strategies can differ significantly, leading to incoherent messaging and risks to a company’s reputation.
This is often the case in the corporate comms and marketing context. Both teams may have a general company narrative in mind but communicate it in varied ways and with different intentions, creating product ambiguity and leading to confusion among the public – an avoid-at-all-costs outcome that is rarely beneficial for a company’s reputation.
Instead – when creating a joint narrative is the goal – reframing your corporate culture to see your PR and marketing departments as allies and equally integral to your company’s success is the best course of action.
The ideal case: learning from each other
Corporate communication professionals adopt a long-term mindset – wanting to safeguard their company’s reputation – while marketers care more about the short-term – generating leads and profit. As we’ve explored, these opposing ways of thinking have led to clashes in the past.
However, there’s a lot of potential for learning on both sides.
Most corporate communication professionals are storytelling wizzes and know exactly how to spread a company’s narrative in a unique and engaging way. As marketers are commercially minded, it’s not only beneficial for them to take notes on the effective ways to tell authentic stories, but they can also learn a thing or two about creating brand awareness and keeping a cool head during stressful times. This will allow them to strike the delicate balance between seeing results and connecting with audiences in a meaningful way.
Corporate communication professionals, on the other hand, can also expand their portfolio of skills by shadowing their marketing peers. Here are three examples:
Strategic communication
An effective PR strategy can play an important role in the strategic development of a company. However, to truly know whether your efforts are paying off, you need to rely on data to tell the story. As marketers are experts at working with numbers, it’s worth turning to them for learnings and best practices on how to build insightful dashboards and draw conclusions from them. They can help your corporate comms team figure out how to monitor and measure your performance, as well as figure out your target audience.
Social media communication
All stakeholders – from investors to consumers – are expecting companies to have a coherent digital presence. This has unsurprisingly led to organisations aiming to improve their digital channels, with 53% considering it to be a top priority. Within reputational management and crisis communication, social media can be an invaluable asset to inform and reassure audiences. Marketers can share tips and tricks, as they know the ins and outs of these platforms.
Measuring the impact of your storytelling
Telling engaging stories is a key part of any PR professional’s job description – they help your audience get to know your company, build customer loyalty and improve investor communications. Though corporate comms teams are experts at authentic storytelling, gauging its impact can remain tricky. As marketers have already come up with an effective and measurable formula for reaching audiences and providing value, they can show you how to observe the right metrics for continuous optimisation of your messaging strategy.
Now that we’ve covered what your company’s corporate communication and marketing teams can learn from each other, let’s move on to how best to unite these teams in practice.
How to unite your PR and marketing departments under the same narrative
In your efforts to bridge the gap between PR and marketing, these are the 4 checkboxes you’ll need to tick.
Creating interactions based on understanding and empathy
One thing is clear – creating a trusted partnership is going to be hard if all parties aren’t on the same page. That’s why it’s important that your PR and marketing department are familiar with the job descriptions and purpose of the other team. While corporate comms reaches new audiences and enhances company credibility through the endorsement of the media, (content) marketers keep these stakeholders engaged and generate profit.
However, a mentality of ‘live and let live’ isn’t enough. Rather, your PR and marketing teams should acknowledge their respective roles as mutually beneficial for hitting long-term company goals, while communicating empathetically with each other. Creating this foundation is key to making any actual collaboration possible.
Align on goal-setting
If your corporate communication and marketing teams are aligned, the chance for miscommunication decreases considerably.
Let’s say your company is aiming to become a B Corp this year. To figure out how they can do their part, your PR and marketing teams discuss what sub-goals they need to accomplish, settling on a need to communicate the organisation’s perspective and achievements via more digital channels. If everyone knows what goals they are trying to attain, both teams will know exactly what needs to be done to stay on track.
Establish a common narrative
Once common goals have been established, the next step involves creating a coherent narrative and tone of voice in all messaging. This is especially important to today’s audiences, who are quick to call out companies for any discrepancy in what they promise and actually do in practice.
For example, if PR and marketing have agreed on their goals to get the B Corp certification, all communication needs to paint their company as environmentally and socially responsible. Corporate comms teams should only reach out to equally responsible investors and marketers should communicate transparently, steering clear of using big claims or buzzwords that cannot be backed up.
Develop a joint content plan
After aligning on common goals and a unified narrative, developing a joint content plan is the next thing on the agenda.
To solidify the company’s reputation as ‘green’, your marketing colleagues may collaborate with a production agency to create a visual campaign, sharing it on various social media channels. As your PR team is kept in the loop, it can then reach out to various sustainability media, who will promote the campaign with their respective audiences – a win-win effort for both the two teams and the company as a whole.
The takeaway
With audiences expecting more authenticity and transparency, more and more companies are being criticized online for any missteps. To steer clear of raised eyebrows and too much bad publicity, your company’s corporate communication teams can no longer afford to do their own thing and should rather unite under a ‘better together’ mentality.
As we’ve explored, both teams should align on common goals, establish a coherent narrative and develop a joint content plan, all while communicating with understanding and empathy. This will not only help your organisation develop sustainably but also help it set itself apart from competitors that still encourage their teams to work in silos.
