Paid Ads & PR – How to Use Both to Your Advantage!

When it comes to reaching your marketing goals, it is important to consider using both an advertising and PR campaign. Advertising is great for improving website traffic, brand awareness, lead generation, conversion and sales. Public relations is great for creating and enhancing your brand's reputation and image, stimulating demand by communicating information that connects with your audience.  

Brand awareness can be increased by up to 80% through Google paid ads, and paid ads return $2 for every $1 spent (a 200% ROI). Moreover, a stronger corporate image will boost your stock price by an average of 5-7%. 

In this article, we’ll explain each marketing tactic and why they work better together. 

Running a PR Campaign 

Companies that run a PR campaign are typically looking to get a clear message out to the public about something generally big and important going on with or at the company. Unlike advertising campaigns, the objective wouldn't be exclusive to a specific audience — but rather the public as a whole. 

There are 10 steps in a comprehensive PR campaign plan that you need to know. They include identifying the target audience, drafting PR goals, outlining PR objectives, defining strategies, deciding on tactics, planning other PR activities, settling on an ongoing evaluation method that allows for adjustments as the campaign progresses, determining the materials needed to carry out the campaign, creating a budget, and drafting a timetable and to-do-list. 

The Benefits 

When done correctly, you can also expect to enjoy the following benefits: 

• Generate more interest in your brand, products and services. 
• Bring more value to your offers via content that educates, informs and demonstrates helpful information. 
• Improve lead generation and conversions with increased press releases, social media content and media coverage.  
• Enhance your brand image with more brand-to-consumer communication.  

Situations that Benefit Most from PR 

Situations that benefit most from PR campaigns require reaching a large audience like:  

• New product releases. 
• New partnerships, like a non-profit that supports a charity/cause and has an objective to reach (improves your public image!). 
• Building, preserving or improving your brand reputation. 

Running an Advertising Campaign 

When running a paid marketing campaign, you're utilizing advertising efforts that require you to 'pay' for them to reach your audience. Unlike PR, they're not centered around reaching as many people as possible, but rather, your target audience — given the objective. Take, for instance, brand awareness.   

If you're looking to spread brand awareness in a given area (maybe you have a new or additional store coming to the location or upcoming discounts/deals), using display ads, pay-per-click (PPC), and paid social media ads can help spread the news.  

The Benefits 

Paid ad campaigns have many advantages, but the following are some key benefits to consider: 

• Complete control over the creation and delivery of paid advertising content and timing. 
• You can target a specific audience with your message. 
• Has an extensive reach among relevant consumers. 

• Works efficiently when combined with other marketing efforts like owned and earned media. 

Situations that Benefit Most from Paid Ads 

Paid ad campaigns will benefit you most if you're looking to:  

• Increase brand awareness. 
• Direct and improve traffic to your website, blog, social media, etc.  
• Attract new customers and leads. 

How an Experienced Media Consultant Can Help 

It can be a challenge determining paid ad designs, placements, messaging, delivery timing, and more. In fact, it takes a lot of expertise, experience, and in-depth knowledge of your target audience to do it successfully. This is where a media consultant would come in the make all the difference — they already know what works and what doesn't, which type of paid media works best with your industry and campaign goals, and have additional knowledge and experience that can be tapped into when you need it most. 

Working Together as Part of Your Marketing Mix 

When you combine advertising and PR in your marketing mix, you are maximizing your efforts to gain positive brand recognition and coverage.  

One of the most important things you can do in marketing is to integrate other methods into your marketing plan, and these two are particularly useful together. Seventy-two percent of consumers want an integrated marketing approach, and 86% of professionals contribute long-term success to having an integrated marketing strategy. 

Learn more about advertising, PR, and other marketing tips to help your business grow by following our Gray Las Vegas blog.