Advertising Is Not Worth Much Unless Everyone Knows About It

BY LARRY DAVIS, ONLINEED.COM

It’s easy to become confused about terms used in today’s advertising, marketing, promotion, public relations, publicity, and sales. The terms are often used and misused interchangeably. However, they refer to different -- but similar activities. Advertising is bringing a product or service to the attention of your customer with signs, brochures, commercials, direct mailings or e-mail messages, personal contact, etc. Promotion keeps the product or service in the minds of the customer and helps stimulate demand for the product. Marketing is the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you're continuing to meet the needs of your customers and getting value in return. Public Relations (PR) includes ongoing activities to ensure the overall company or you has a strong public image. Public relations activities include helping the public to understand the company and or you of its products and services.

Publicity is mentioned in the media. Organizations usually have little control over the message in the media, at least, not as they do in advertising. Yet I have found that online ed.com offers a course Profit by Publicity that provides step-by-step directions on how to generate the level of positive publicity about real estate and you. This course puts tools in your hands to help increase business through positive news coverage. The course was prepared by Edward Segal, who shares his advice and expertise as the marketing strategies columnist for The Wall Street Journal

Sales involves most or many of the preceding activities, including cultivating prospective buyers (or leads) in your market segment.

The following example I discovered in Reader's Digest, an excerpt from "Promoting Issues and Ideas" by M. Booth and Associates, Inc.

"... if the circus is coming to town, you paint a sign saying ‘Circus Coming, that's advertising. You put the sign on the back of an elephant, walk it into town, that's promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor's flower bed, and It's covered by the media, that's publicity. You get the mayor to laugh about it, that's public relations." If citizens go the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they'll have spending at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately, they spend at the circus, that's sales."