It is only really big business that has maximised public relations as a means to advertise their goods and services. Small and medium sized businesses are still dependent on conventional forms of advertising for publicity. This can be to their detriment especially if they have limited advertising budgets.

Public relations can achieve a similar effect as traditional advertising methods to generate sales. Anyone in business understands the relationship between brand awareness and end of year profits. The greater the public recognition of a brand, the greater potential success there is for the company. Keeping the brand in the forefront of the public consciousness is key. Public relations can help small businesses to raise their public awareness and thus improve performance.

The difference between advertising and public relations is that advertising is designed to influence the market to behave in a certain way toward your business; usually to entice people to purchase from you. The message of advertising is very direct and one sided – this product is good, you should buy it – there is no room in the advertisers message for people to form their own opinions.

Public relations uses the news as a means of raising public awareness about a company. This approach is not worried about generating a debate regarding the company. If people are talking about the company at all then public relations has done its job. To ensure that the company remains in the public eye, public relations will work to create news stories surrounding a company, product or service but these stories are perceived as general facts that will or have occurred. There is no selling with public relations.

A favourite method of public relations to raise public awareness about a business or product is through sponsorships. For example, a sportswear company might organise a charitable sporting competition for children in schools from deprived areas. The company might provide branded sportswear for the competitors to wear. The public relations manager will then ensure that all the media houses get to know about the forthcoming event and the media will be interested in covering it because such an event is of interest to their readers, viewers or listeners. The public receive the story about the event but they also get a secondary message that the sportswear company exists and that it must be a quality brand and also an ethical brand.

The greatest attraction of public relations over advertising is cost effectiveness. Very often coverage of the company is entirely free because it is in the interests of the media houses to report on newsworthy stories. It is not always necessary to contract the services of an expensive PR firm or employ the services of a costly public relations professional. Small and medium sized companies can perform their own public relations. There are many books and online marketing courses that can help them to do this effectively.