To an outsider, those two fields can look just alike. After all, both departments spend their days writing articles, managing social media, crafting public messages and shaping how the world sees a brand.

But confusing marketing with corporate communications, often called “CorpComms,” is a big mistake. They are two sides of the same coin, but with completely different goals, different audiences and different measures of success.

Corporate Communications Vs Marketing

To understand the difference between these two departments, it helps to look at their basic mission statements.

The Purpose of Marketing: “Buy this product or service because it will fix your particular problem”
The Goal of Corporate Communications: Trust this company because of our values, our leadership and our integrity

In short, Marketing sells the goods. Corporate Communications builds the house where those products can be sold.

The marketing team is very successful, but the corporate communications team fails. You get a company that makes a great product, but is hated by the public due to poor environmental practices or a toxic workplace culture.

But marketing might not work and you end up with a very reputable, ethical company with products that no one really knows are there.

One of the biggest differences between the two fields is the audience they’re trying to reach.

Marketing Has One Audience: The Consumer

Marketing teams put 100% of their energy on potential buyers, current customers and target demographics. They segment audiences in a rigid way by age, location, income and online shopping habits, making sure that their ads reach the right people that are most likely to open up their wallets.

Corporate Communications Has A Complex Audience: The Stakeholders

A stakeholder is anyone who has a personal interest or stake in the company’s survival. It's far more than just the people buying the products. CorpComms is for the audience of:

Employees: Keeping internal staff informed, safe and aligned with company goals
Investors and Shareholders: Convincing those who provide the business with money that the business is financially sound and well managed
The Media: Developing relationships with reporters to obtain positive news coverage.
Government Regulators: Ensuring the company is viewed as a compliant, law-abiding corporate citizen
The Local Community: Show that the business is a good neighbour with charity work or environmental initiatives

What Is The Message?

The actual words and tones these two departments use are completely different because they talk to different audiences.

Marketing: Features, Benefits And Emotion

A marketing message is designed to create an immediate psychological need. It explains how the product works, why it’s better than the competition, how much it costs and why you need it RIGHT NOW. It utilises catchy slogans, bold colours and clear "Calls to Action" (e.g. Buy Now, Sign Up, Limited Time Offer).

Corporate Communications: Reputation, Credibility, Transparency

A CorpComms message is factual, measured and professional. There is no place for fancy advertising language in an annual financial report for investors or a safety update for employees. CorpComms tells the long-term story of the company’s vision, its ethical standards and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

How Is Success Measured?

All departments in the business world have to prove their worth. But marketing and corporate communications do the maths on that value in a whole different way.

Direct And Numerical Marketing Metrics

Its success is very trackable because marketing is directly tied to the sales pipeline. Marketing teams look at actual data such as:

Return on Investment (ROI): “For every dollar we invested in Facebook ads, we earned $5 in sales”
Conversion Rates: How many people visiting the website clicked “buy”
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The actual cost of acquiring a new customer

Corporate Communications Math: Intangible And Long Term

A good reputation is hard to put a dollar figure on. Hence, qualitative data such as the following are used to quantify the success of CorpComms:

Share of Voice: The number of times the company is mentioned in the news versus its competitors
Sentiment Analysis: Is the news coverage and social media chatter on the company positive, neutral or negative
Employee Retention: Internal communications doing its thing to keep employees happy enough to stick with the company long term

What Happens When There Is A Corporate or Company Crisis?

The distinction between these two departments becomes even starker when a company is hit with a major crisis – be it a massive data breach, a product recall or a financial scandal involving the CEO.

In a company crisis, the marketing department usually takes a breather. It’s tone deaf and offensive to run a light-hearted, funny ad for a product when the company is trending on the news for a major data leak. Marketing steps back to prevent further damage to the brand.

This is the time when the corporate communication team comes into the limelight. They take over the whole running of the company. The CorpComms group sets up a “war room” to write official press statements, coordinate live media briefings, write explanatory emails to concerned customers and update internal staff on the company’s plan to fix the issue. Their quick and unambiguous response can be the difference between a company surviving the storm or going totally bankrupt.

A Cautious Alliance

Marketing is the accelerator pedal that drives sales and moves the business forward, while corporate communications is the steering wheel and navigation system that keeps the company on a safe, reputable path.

How Corporate Communications Differs From Marketing