What's the difference between marketing, PR, and advertising?

Marketing is the broadest term. Advertising is a part of marketing. (It’s one of five parts, but I forgot the other four. Product design, selling, and research, and something else?)

I don’t know where public relations fits into this arcane scheme.

Marketing is the act of factoring cost opposed to revenue, PR is the way you conduct yourself in sales or representation of a company or it’s product (a very good position if you have the personality for it). Advertising is the way you make your appeal to the masses, showing what a miraculous item you are going to provide, Also, if you go this route, make sure the markup is at least triple the cost to manufacture, ergo your profit AND reputation as a successful advertiser. Good luck and God Bless you:)

I’ve worked in all three, and people get them confused all the time.

Marketing is closely related with sales. Marketing determines a market for a product, does research to understand the audience, sets sales strategies, determines what sort of collateral or campaigns are needed, and then measures the effectiveness of the campaigns against sales goals. Marketing also works with research to determine what products the company should go to market with based upon the needs of their customer base. A factor of marketing is also customer retention, through communications existing customer base, as well as training materials for sales.

Advertising is the creative execution of the marketing strategy created by the marketing department. Their effectiveness is based upon the ability of the campaigns created to meet the marketing objectives. Creative needs to be consistent with brand image, and provide consistent messaging across multiple platforms; it is the tactical execution of the marketing plan.

Public relations minds the image of the company and makes sure that it is projected in the best light possible. They are responsible creating press release for news about a company’s activities and accomplishments. A company spokesman who deals with the press would be in PR or corporate communications. PR may also be responsible for sponsorships and soft promotion of a company image.

In many companies, public relations may also be responsible for social media efforts. However, social media requires crossfunctional participants. Depending on the intent of the usage of social media, it’s generally best handled internally because your own staff knows your company best. Social media spawns a whole new area of promotional roles, such as community managers. The purpose is to create and maintain a relationship with your existing customer base. The fastest and most cost-effective way to grow a business is to keep the business you have.

I got my Bachelors in Business Admin and my major was Marketing with an emphasis in Advertising (yes, I’m now a teacher but that’s a long story).

From my experience,

New grads that major in Marketing usually go in one of two directions:
A.) They go to work in a marketing department for a company, making $18K a year to start, and if they stick with it and “pay their dues” they end up with a “kick you-know-what” job when they’re at leaste 35, making over six figures a year. They analyze data showing who buys what, why, how, when etc. – i.e. studying the “market” for whatever industry you’re in. Watch Big with Tom Hanks.
B.) They get a job in Sales as an Outside Sales Rep, making $50—$100 a year to start (based on commission and bonuses). They are a direct contact between the customer and their company. They present products, shmooze existing clients, think of new ways to sell to new clients, and many other tasks. Watch the original Wall Street with Charlie Sheen.

In the Advertising field you can go one of three ways:
A.) Media Department – buying media for Advertisers. (Many have marketing and advertising degrees)…kind of boring…no movie reference here. :)
B.) Creative Department – creating the advertising, i.e. coming up with ads, slogans, whole advertising campaigns, etc. Watch Boomerang with Eddy Murphy
C.) Account Management – dealing with the clients and walking them through the process of advertising their product with the Ad Agency. This one takes a long time to work up to, but highly lucrative, most start out with low pay, but you just work your way up. Watch Picture Perfect with Jennifer Anniston.

Public Relations is a broad term, and it’s a job title that can have many different job descriptions – all of course have to do with…. well, building a relationship with the public.

BONUS QUESTION:
You can use it to go into
-Event Planning
-Trade Show Department or planning for various state and city associations
-Nursing Homes, Assissted Livings and Hospitals’ business offices.
-Banking! You can get a great job at a bank and work you way up.
-Another field is non-profits like National Kidney Foundation, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Red Cross either helping in fundraising or planning fundraisers. Chamber of Commerce worker.

Remember, with all the Baby Boom generation retiring anything in the health or elderly care career field will explode in the next 20 years, and there are many jobs around this field for a person wanting to go into business.

Basically, you can apply for ANY job and be considered if you have a bachelors and a minor in Businesss Admin….Best of luck to you! Good for you for asking questions before you jump off – that tells me you will be great in business!

<—- Salaams to BarnacleBill for excellent answer.