Advertising and Public Relations are sometimes thought to be different names for the same thing. While they are both methods of promoting your business, some of the differences are show in the table below:
| Advertising | Public Relations | |
| Cost | Involves not only the cost of creating the message (the print, radio or TV commercials), but also the cost of paying a media outlet to deliver the message. | Involves primarily the costs of developing the positive information about the company, owner or product - messages you hope to communicate to your market and community. |
| Control | You control the message and the method and timing of delivery. | The media controls the message and the method and timing of delivery. |
People often refer to the results of public relations or publicity - such as the positive mention of your company in a newspaper or magazine article - as free advertising. This is an inaccurate statement, though, for several reasons.
First, it's usually not free. Someone spent time and effort developing a promotion or publicity strategy, writing a press release or engaging in some activity that produced the mention. Second, it's not advertising. In advertising, you control the message, you control media placement and you control when it's placed. You cannot control your company's inclusion in an article, what is said about your company or when an article will appear.
All this is not to say that publicity activities are not valuable or worth time, money and effort. They certainly are. In fact, such activities might give you a better return on your investment than advertising. Just remember not to confuse advertising with other marketing communications, public relations or publicity efforts.
