In today’s fast-paced, hyper-competitive market, all eyes are on marketing to drive results. Whether it’s the constant push to hit sales targets, craft campaigns that cut through the noise, or trying to get the brand noticed, marketing carries a heavy load. It’s no wonder it’s often the first department to be criticised when results and lead acquisition aren’t hitting the mark.
But in all that hustle and bustle, public relations can easily get left in the shadows, side-lined, or not given the focus and attention it needs to shine. And that’s a problem, because when PR is missing from the picture, businesses risk losing out on the stuff that matters – building reputation, trust, and turning short-term awareness into long-term credibility. And that’s crucial for future growth!
So, is it time to ask the question ‘does your marketing team need PR’ and how do you achieve it? Let’s take a look.
What is PR (How Is It Different from Marketing)?
Internal research, decoding consumer behaviour, building strategies and messaging that resonates, promoting the next big launch…does that all sound familiar? Well, that all falls under the marketing umbrella, helping you attract more customers and get the engagement you need.
PR, on the other hand, is all about earning credibility and building trust. By integrating PR with your marketing efforts, you create a combined strategy that boosts long-term visibility and builds your position as a trusted voice in your industry. Essentially, PR pros are people-pleasers who make your audience believe in you (and talk about you for the right reasons).
That distinction matters because trust directly drives customer behaviour. Research shows that UK shoppers spend an average of 44% more with trusted retailers and are far more likely to stay loyal over time (UK 2025 Consumer Insights Report for Digital Commerce| Marketing Trends and Data).
Why Does Your Team Need Marketing and Public Relations?
Creating brand awareness and building customer trust is a crucial factor in today’s environment. With information flying in across multiple marketing channels, you need consumers to hear and trust your voice.
Here are a few key areas where Public Relations can supercharge your marketing tasks.
🎯How public relations aligns with marketing strategy & planning
You’ve got your marketing strategy in place, the goals are clear and you lock in the marketing campaign. Now, it’s time for the hard part – putting it into action and getting it seen.
But what happens if the killer campaign isn’t being seen. It might be because you’ve skipped the PR part of the strategy.
You see, PR helps you zoom out and think about the bigger picture i.e. how and where you want your brand to show up. Think press releases, articles, email newsletters, podcast features and even speaking opportunities, all the stuff that builds buzz beyond your own channels.
PR also plays a role in helping you meet your target audience. When it’s done correctly, PR should get into the ‘why’ behind your audience. They should do their market research into behavioural, demographic and psychographic insights to ensure you connect with your target audience. Only by conducting media sentiment analysis can they send your media communications to the right channels using the best tone of voice.
✍️Content Marketing and public relations
Got a pile of content to create? We get it. You’re under pressure to keep things moving, get results, and somehow turn it all into lead generation or sales. But let’s be real. it’s not that simple. You can’t just post anything and hope for the best.
That’s where PR thinking helps. With a Public Relations mindset integrated into content marketing, you ask the big questions: What is the story? Why should anyone care? What information do you really need to get across? How often do you need to get the message out there to make a difference?
Take this approach and you move away from content creation that ‘fill’s the space.’ Instead you craft messages that connect with your target market. Not just in the moment, but consistently over time. It’s an important factor for winning customer loyalty. Market research shows that ‘83% of UK consumers can name at least one brand they’re loyal to, with trust, quality and consistency being the biggest drivers’ (UserTesting, 2025). Integrating PR into your marketing strategy helps achieve this long-term brand trust.
Making sure customers recognise your brand identity as one that delivers on loyalty is not a simple process. You need to dig deeper and apply public relations content that actually connects. Content marketing shouldn’t be about saying lots of different things randomly and there should be a thread that ties everything together. Then, when your customer is ready to buy, your company is already at the back of their mind.
📱Social media marketing and public relations
So, you published some fantastic social media posts last month. They got the attention, built some awareness, maybe even sparked a few conversations. Hooray! But now, for some reason, you’re struggling to keep the momentum going. You’re using the same content marketing, but suddenly… it’s flopping.
Well, PR’s job is to keep the spark alive in your social media feeds. They’re always tuned in. Your agency knows exactly what’s trending, what’s newsworthy content, and what’s gaining action in your industry and in your audience’s world.
They will work with you to ensure your social media planning works with your marketing strategy and content calendars. They can then review the social media channels you want to target and adapt your messaging to ensure it fits with your target audience. When it comes to social media platforms, a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work for your content! PR consultancies then shape the right angle and turn it into content people want to share, comment on, and remember.
🤖SEO strategy and PR intergration
Today’s digital marketing communications make it harder than ever to get products or services noticed across the channels. For a long time, Search Engine Optimization was the leader for boosting your position within the search rankings. Yet in this modern arena, there is now the need to meet AI requirements.
Making sure you’re seen and heard on all the right platforms is key. Whether it’s new landing pages for a campaign or product launches that sell, content needs to be written for AI requirements. That means it has to answer questions, include tables, and use reliable sources. At the same time, it needs to fulfill all the requirements of traditional SEO. A PR agency can work alongside your marketing team to ensure content not only meets traditional SEO requirements but also satisfies AI-driven search and voice search queries, helping your brand appear in the right results.
🌐Website Development and PR content
Your website has to be more than just a digital shop window. It’s your brand identity’s home base, the place people go to learn who you are, what you do, and whether you’re worth their time.
PR helps make sure it’s not just looking good but performing, too. PR does this by driving traffic through credible media outlets and other websites. When you land coverage in the right places you earn valuable backlinks that boost your site’s authority. Not only is this essential for helping your climb up the search rankings but, in this day and age, getting you see in AI.
Public Relations also plays a big role in shaping the content that lives on your site. Good examples include blog posts, case studies, and guides that turn you into a reliable industry expert. Customer buying habits have changed significantly and they now want answers to all their questions before they make important buying decisions. Make sure your blogs are consistent, logically link across your services and product marketing communications, clear brand storytelling and above all else – answer the questions your customers are asking.
Then, when someone clicks through, they immediately get a sense of who you are and what you stand for.
📰Media Outreach
Marketing teams often hit a wall when trying to get noticed by media sources. You know your brand is great, but breaking through the noise and trying to land real coverage is a whole other ballgame. Without the right connections or insider know-how, it can feel like talking to an empty room.
With PR specialists on your side, you already have your foot in the door. Building strong media relationships with journalists is part of the job so they’ve got a network of contacts that marketing teams usually don’t. They continuously work on their media management to help your brand earn trust and get featured in the right places fast.
A PR officer should also make it their job to keep an eye on press activity. Media planning will form a key part of their service so that you know what upcoming features can work for your customers. They should then regularly monitor the media landscapes to find out what is the ‘hot’ news items or topics. They should then recommend articles that fit with your content marketing communications.
📈Analytics & reporting
Marketing teams are always under pressure to prove results, and adding PR metrics to the mix is a great way to show real impact.
You can measure PR by tracking media mentions, website traffic from PR placements, backlinks, and how many views and the engagement those pages get. These numbers help paint a picture of how PR is boosting your brand management.
That said, Public Relations can be tricky to measure. A customer might come across a podcast interview, then a blog post, a news article, and a social media mention all before making a decision to buy. Because of that, the impact isn’t always immediate or easy to connect to one specific action. But over time, all those touchpoints build trust and familiarity, which are huge wins for your brand image.
When Should I Bring In a PR Agency?
Well, that depends on whether your marketing team can keep up with all these tasks. Remember, PR requires lots of time and attention to get right. It’s the reason why many big businesses have a whole separate department to focus on it.
If you’re answering ‘true’ to the following, it might be time to speak to an agency like Aura PR:
- The executive team want us to deliver more but my marketing team is already stretched.
- Our campaign/project/product marketing is amazing but we’re not getting the coverage.
- We always go with paid rather than earned coverage to guarantee exposure.
- We want to expand our media outreach and work with different titles, but don’t know where to start.
Remember, you don’t always need a million-dollar media communications budget to kick off great PR. What you do need is are content creators that works seamlessly alongside your marketing team, gets your vision and business goals, can translate your strategy into strong PR, and knows how to push your brand image.
When both marketing and PR teams are aligned and ticking the right boxes, that’s when your business gets the spotlight it truly deserves.
About Aura PR
At Aura PR, we’ve built a strong track record working closely with marketing teams over the years. In fact, we work so well together that we become an extension of your in-house team, just from our own offices.
As PR specialists, we don’t just deliver coverage – we are content creators who build strategies that turn reputation into measurable growth.
As PR specialists, we don’t just deliver coverage – we are content creators who build strategies that turn reputation into measurable growth. Whether it’s securing national coverage, media relationship management, social media engagement, tailoring a PR plan to meet your business needs or creating a thought leadership campaign that influences your industry. We’ve got proven success helping in-house teams working across logistics, biotech, manufacturing and construction, we achieve results they couldn’t reach alone.
All you have to do is give it the green light, and we’ll get to work making things happen.
Why You Need Marketing and Public Relations to Boost
In today’s hard-fought sales environment, trust isn’t just a “nice to have” – it’s one of the biggest factors influencing purchase decisions. Having reliable PR skills is so valuable for your marketing team.
If you’re looking to build that credibility, trust, and customer relationship for your business, it’s definitely worth considering. At the end of the day, a great PR team helps your business stick in people’s minds for all the right reasons. And that’s a win no marketer can afford to miss.
