Why PR and Marketing work together to build brand awareness.

It is still extremely common for marketing and PR to work in silos in many businesses. Particularly in the built environment industry where the notion of publishing completed projects to publications can take precedence over marketing efforts to support the wider business strategy.

In order to build effective brand awareness for your built environment business PR and marketing must work together.

Firstly it is important to explain what the difference is in these practices:

What is Public Relations (PR) ?

Public Relation professionals help a business or individual cultivate a positive reputation with the public through various unpaid or earned communications, including traditional media, social media, and in-person engagements. They also help clients defend their reputation during a crisis that threatens their credibility (source).

What is marketing?

Marketing refers to any actions a company takes to attract an audience to the company's product or services through high-quality messaging. Marketing aims to deliver standalone value for prospects and consumers through content, with the long-term goal of demonstrating product value, strengthening brand loyalty, and ultimately increasing sales. (source)

Here we explain our top 3 reasons why PR and marketing must work together in order for successful brand awareness.

1.The importance of brand consistency.

Audiences value authenticity over promotion, and now see more content in a day than they can read in a year. For example if a potential customer comes across a project published in a magazine that has piqued an interest in them, they will most likely next look for your social channels and website to gain a holistic overview and understanding and feel of your brand.

If these things are not aligned potential clients will not have a clear view of who you are as a brand and what you offer and therefore have the potential to disengage at that moment.

Discover more on the importance of consistent storytelling here.

2. To maintain consistent messaging tone of voice.

The importance of consistent messaging across all verticals of your built environment business is paramount.

Whilst you have the flexibility to adapt your brand's tone of voice for different mediums ( for example can be with more social personality ) all communications when discussing your product and services need to maintain a consistent tone. If PR and Marketing are not aligned on this it will be impossible to achieve.

Read more on how to keep your brand messaging consistent here.

3. Brand awareness

After all PR and Marketing are both after the same goal - building the brand and engaging audiences.

Marketing efforts focus on building and developing your built environment business as well as optimising digital content. It can support the SEO goals your business has in place by ensuring these key elements are included in PR content such as press releases and editorial articles.

Conclusion

A successful approach to adapt is to combine these practices for your built environment business. Whilst it is is important to showcase new projects and industry updates in publications it is vital this is adopted as part of a wider outreach approach. Ensuring your website and social channels are aligned with your brand and business is key to gaining the best return from any PR outward push.

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