Effective Communication Skills Used in Public Relations & Marketing

Basic communication skills are important in any business environment and in many situations such as meetings or negotiations. Some professions, however, require a bit more proficiency in communication skills; public relations is certainly one such profession. Marketing professionals also benefit from enhanced communication skills, particularly as online content becomes more important to you as a business owner.

Public relations and marketing professionals need to be capable writers. In PR, you will do copious amounts of writing: plans, press releases, biographies, website content and articles. Marketing professionals also need to adeptly put planning documents together and more and more are being called on to create content for businesses and products that target audiences will find online. If you are a marketer who specializes in advertising, you will also need to write advertising copy such as slogans and product descriptions.

Speaking is very important in public relations, particularly for positions in which PR professionals act as spokespersons or press secretaries. Even non-spokespersons, however, need to pitch ideas to media and interact with stakeholders and outside organizations. PR and marketing professionals need to give presentations -- outlining a creative idea or presenting survey results -- to outside clients or to other company departments, so learning basic public speaking techniques is beneficial.

PR is all about relationships, so having strong interpersonal communication skills is paramount. This means having a grasp of your relationship status with other individuals, and the contexts, such as professional, environmental and psychological. PR and marketing professionals need to interact with varied individuals; marketing requires cooperation among PR, advertising and sales, as well as product development and other department heads. External audiences include journalists, customers and sales representatives.

Non-verbal skills, such as body language, can be as crucial to marketing and PR pros as verbal skills in certain situations – particularly in the absence of verbal speech. Eye contact and body language, such as your stance, can convey important messages to audiences about your credibility. How you listen to other people is as important as what you say to them. This is crucial in customer meetings or when trying to persuade a journalist to cover a story.