Founder. Unicorn. Deep tech startup. Mother. Boyfriend. Padel player. Lesbian. Stamp collector. Best friend.
What do these have in common?
Boxes.
We (humans) love a good box.
Boxes help us understand the world. It helps us compartmentalize (literally) the slew of information that is flung at us on a daily basis to make sense of it in the millisecond it takes to fire a neuron. Otherwise – we'd be left with a lot of random information and wouldn't know what to do.
And boxes exist everywhere. In relationships, in the world we see and touch, and certainly in business.
In the agency space, you've got another entire set of boxes. Advertising, digital marketing, content marketing, SEO, PR, creative, design, etc., etc.
But what if you're in between boxes?
That's where we find ourselves at Truesix. At the intersection of PR and Content Marketing. Both, in theory, vastly different, but we would argue, functionally inseparable. Well, you can separate them, but at your own cost. Namely, missed opportunities, inefficient task management, and generally, worse results and lower performance.
While we are convinced that this is the way to go, living at the intersection of two worlds is always tricky. Not fully one, but not entirely the other. Most of all – when telling others about what you do, it's not great to have to glue two boxes together, like a makeshift marketing Frankenstein. But it's the best we have at the moment, and it's certainly the truth. Our truth.
We also believe deeply that the best results are achieved when they work in tandem. And that, when done right, you actually can't fully separate one from the other.
In this post, I'd love to tell you more about why content marketing and PR is inseparable to the modern tech company that's looking to have a decent brand, reputation, and visibility online.
But first – what is PR, and what's content marketing
Before going further, we have to make sure that we're on the same page about PR and content marketing.
PR is:
Public relations. Managing your relationship with the public. Aka, guiding, driving, and crafting how you or your brand is seen by the world, by your audience, by your potential customers, your investors, you name it.
Content marketing is:
The bits of stuff (content) your brand puts out into the world, which can be seen by the public.
It is done with the intent of distributing useful content into the world that aligns your brand with the desired topic, with an indirect goal of eventually attracting clients.
How are they different?
A fundamental difference is that marketing by definition exists with the underlying goal of ultimately driving sales. PR, while it can have that effect, does not organize its actions based on income. But rather through managing reputation and public perception.
But there are also little differences.
Public relations will often involve communication outside of owned channels, while content marketing will often (but not exclusively) reside on owned channels.
How are they similar?
Because content marketing can be seen by the public, it follows that this also plays a role in your public relations.
Because anything that you put out (content) on behalf of your brand for the purposes of PR has your brand name on it, it also serves as driving interest in your product (marketing).
Both can impact public perception, both can play major roles in driving SEO efforts, both can impact trust and credibility.
Do you see how separating one from the other is getting tricky?
The forms they take
The easiest way to differentiate one from the other is through the forms they take. But even then, there are content types that overlap.
While this is by no means a complete list, it illustrates that there are some formats that can (and are) managed under both umbrella terms. And guess what? They also have the same functions.
The modern conundrum
The difficulty in differentiating content marketing from PR is an exclusively modern-day problem.
With the rise of the internet came the inevitable shift to online marketing (and PR, for that matter, as well). If marketing before-hand was mostly relegated to the world of advertising and magazine placements, and PR was mostly relegated to the world of in-person press conferences, newspaper coverage, and TV news coverage, then the internet has brought it all together online, mixed it up, and left to find its own way in the digital realm.
We are by far not the only ones to have encountered this issue. And there are several ways people have gone about finding terms to fit the modern-day reality of PR and marketing in the digital age:
- Brand journalism – a term that gained popularity a decade-or-so ago, but stretches further back. It was coined in 2004 by Larry Light, the then-CMO of McDonald's. Used to describe when media stories were created specifically for the purpose of highlighting a brand, with the goal of having people engage with the brand even more.
- Digital PR – a more recent term that has come to encapsulate the concept of developing visibility and reputation in an online environment, using online tools. Depending on the source, that can include digital third-party tools, like visibility in media outlets, influencer marketing, publishing opinion pieces or backlinks on external pages. Some definitions include making use of owned channels for communication, using content marketing, SEO, and social media as tools. Others yet include paid marketing – such as sponsored posts and social media advertising.
What we do encapsulates all of this and more, as we at Truesix also dabble in traditional PR such as media relations, event PR, press conferences, press briefings, media tours, and more.
Coming together for the best results
Regardless of what you want to call it, streamlining your international visibility efforts, no matter which channels you're using, is a decent approach to ensuring that your brand gains the recognition it needs for business to thrive.
In the digital age, it's not enough to simply have a good product. The 1989 adage “build it and they will come” no longer applies.
You have to build, make sure it's good, then tell people about it. And only then can you expect to start building traction. And you must tell people about it wherever those people happen to be.
Due to the inextricable nature of content belonging both in the content marketing and PR side of brand communication, we believe that the magic really happens when you're willing to take a message and run with it – to whatever channels it may be best suited for. Because it's not the channel that matters, it's the story.
Look:
If you stick to content marketing, the people who are actively looking for your product will find you. But what about the people who don't know what the solution to their problem is? What about those stories that aren't geared towards leads, but rather toward reputation, visibility, and development of expertise in their field? You will be limited by the confines of your own platforms.
For meaningful reach, the best approach is to make use of all of the platforms available to you. And I'm not just talking about media. I'm talking podcasts, making use of conferences, getting on stage in front of a crowd, your own social media. Visibility is an all-platform activity.
And when you're not limited to certain channels defined by the marketing box you're in, then you have the agency (agency as in – “the capability to take action”, rather than “organization that provides services to multiple businesses”) to make the best possible use of that story.
And that is what Truesix's true motto is – gaining that visibility and international reach that you need, by using any means (and channels) possible and that are available to us.
So are we a content marketing and PR agency? Or are we simply an international visibility agency?
Good question! More on that later.
August 7, 2024
ByJulia Gifford
In