Manufacturers often compete on price when buyers cannot see or understand the differences that justify their value. Marketing can increase visibility; positioning and PR help explain and substantiate what makes the business worth choosing.
For manufacturers and other essential businesses, the difference between marketing and PR might be more important than you think.
You’ve spent decades building a business that does something exceptionally well.
You’ve invested in equipment, people, processes, and relationships. Your customers know they can count on you. Your employees take pride in their work. And you know, without question, that what you offer is better than what some of your competitors are selling.
So why are you still having to justify your price? Why does a competitor with half your experience and a slicker website keep showing up on the same shortlists? And why does it feel like the market doesn’t fully appreciate what you’ve built?
You might have a marketing problem. But there’s a good chance you have a reputation problem, too.
And those aren’t quite the same thing.
Marketing helps people buy. PR helps people understand why you’re worth buying from.
I often explain the distinction this way: Marketing is a function of sales. PR is a function of leadership and management.
As I told Kendra Corman on Imperfect Marketing, PR is the reputation that precedes you into a room, whether you are meeting a prospective customer or recruiting an employee. It helps make the next conversation easier. That does not mean PR replaces marketing or guarantees sales; it means the two can reinforce one another.
Marketing is designed to generate demand and move prospective customers toward a purchase. It’s your advertising, your email campaigns, your website, your sales materials, and the dozens of ways you put your products and services in front of potential buyers.
PR has a broader responsibility. It shapes how people understand and perceive your company, including customers, prospective employees, industry partners, community leaders, and anyone else whose opinion can influence your success.
Good PR helps answer questions that don’t always fit neatly into a sales campaign: What makes this company different? Why should we believe what they’re telling us? What do they know that their competitors don’t? Can we trust them to deliver? Why should we care about what they’re doing?
These questions matter in any industry. But they’re especially important when you’re selling something complicated, expensive, or difficult for the average person to understand.
Which brings us to manufacturing.
The better you are at something complicated, the harder it can be to explain why it matters.
One of the things I’ve noticed working with manufacturers and other technical businesses is that the people inside these companies are often so close to their work that they struggle to see what’s remarkable about it.
They’ll casually describe a process that took 20 years to perfect. They’ll mention a piece of equipment that allows them to do something their competitors can’t. They’ll tell you about an employee who’s been solving the same highly specialized problem for three decades.
And then they’ll shrug and say, “That’s just what we do.”
There is a reason I often say it is hard to read the label from inside the bottle. The people closest to the work know every detail, but they may need an outside perspective to recognize which details matter most to someone buying it.
Except it’s not what everyone does.
It’s what you do. And there’s a good chance it’s part of why your customers choose you, even if you’ve never quite figured out how to put it into words.
The challenge is that expertise doesn’t automatically translate into perceived value.
Your prospective customer may not understand why your process is better. They may not know what your team’s experience means for their bottom line. And they certainly can’t appreciate an advantage they’ve never heard you explain.
So they compare what they can see: price, delivery time, specifications.
And suddenly, you’re competing on the same handful of criteria as a company that may not offer nearly the same value.
You can’t market a difference you haven’t clearly defined.
This is where I see businesses get stuck.
They recognize that they need more visibility, so they invest in marketing. A new website. More social media. A refreshed brochure. Maybe some advertising. Those investments are absolutely worthwhile, especially when done strategically.
But if the underlying message hasn’t changed, they’re often just distributing the same generic claims to more people.
“Quality. Service. Experience. Innovation.” Sound familiar? Your competitors are probably saying those things, too. So before you spend more money telling people about your company, it’s worth asking whether you’re giving them a compelling reason to choose it.
What do you do differently? Why does that difference matter to your customers? What can you demonstrate that your competitors can only claim?
Before we develop a story, I ask a question that can sound a little cheeky: “Why should anyone but you care?” It is not a dismissal of the achievement. Instead, it is a reminder to find the relevance beyond your own building. For a manufacturer, the story may be less about a machine purchase and more about what that investment allows customers, employees, or the community to do.
Those are strategic communications questions, and they’re where PR can make a meaningful contribution. We’re not inventing a better story; we’re uncovering the one that’s already there.
Your reputation is being built whether you’re participating or not.
Here’s something else worth considering.
Your company’s reputation doesn’t begin when you hire a PR firm or launch a marketing campaign. It’s already taking shape through customer experiences, employee conversations, industry relationships, referrals, online searches, and what people hear about you from others. The question is whether that reputation accurately reflects the business you’ve built.
If you’re a manufacturer known for solving difficult problems, does the market recognize that expertise? If you’re a second-generation family business investing in new technology, do prospective customers see a forward-thinking company or assume you’re doing things the way you’ve always done them? If your team consistently goes above and beyond, are those stories reaching anyone beyond your existing customers?
PR helps connect the reality of your business with the way people perceive it.
That might mean positioning your leadership team as industry experts, earning coverage in publications your customers trust, telling the story behind a major investment, or developing a clear message that carries through every customer touchpoint.
This is also why consistency matters. As I explained on the podcast, PR can produce early wins, but its real value often grows through repeated, useful appearances and relationships over quarters and years. Choose a cadence you can sustain; do not promise yourself a weekly campaign that collapses by week three.
The goal isn’t attention for attention’s sake. It’s helping the right people understand why your company deserves their consideration, confidence, and business.
So, do you need PR or marketing?
Honestly, you probably need some combination of both. But the right investment depends on the problem you’re trying to solve.
If your ideal customers understand what makes you different but aren’t finding you, marketing may be the more immediate need. If people know your name but don’t understand your value, you may need to work on your positioning and reputation first. And if your company is doing exceptional work that hardly anyone knows about? You may need both.
The important thing is to diagnose the problem before prescribing the solution.
More visibility isn’t particularly valuable if people still don’t understand why they should choose you. And for companies that have spent generations building something worth choosing, that’s an awfully expensive opportunity to leave on the table.
Podcast companion
Lauren joined Kendra Corman on Imperfect Marketing to discuss PR vs. marketing, newsworthiness, and the “Who cares?” test. Check it out below.
About The Author
Lauren Kwedar Cockerell is founder and president of Kwedar & Co, a Fort Worth-based PR, messaging, and strategic communications firm serving purpose-driven B2B companies. She is the firm’s lead strategist, as well as a frequent podcast guest.
Over the past 20+ years, she has worked with 100s of leaders and organizations to create communications strategies and tactics that support visions and reach goals.
To connect with Lauren, please book a consultation.