it's just not the same without Gravy... Part 1

When I come into work Wednesday morning, although having been there for 8 months now, it feels different. A good different. A wonderful different! I look at everything differently, analyse my usual day-to-day tasks MUCH more, and see Gravy Events & Projects in a whole new light and think of the light I could bring to it with my final PR Professional Practice report at the end of this semester.

I truly love my job and I cannot wait to share some of my experiences that I have there with you all. A quick background on the organisation to give you an understanding of where I sit and why I do the things that I do: Gravy Events & Projects is only 18 months old now, founded by my amazing boss Ivana Brekalo whom has over 10 years experience in the PR industry and who I think of as a great mentor to me. I am her first and only employee which means I am very involved in most things (which is VERY exciting!) and am lucky enough to really enjoy every duty that I am given by her. Gravy is a communications, marketing and business consultancy, specialising in project and event management. We have four ongoing clients: The McComb Foundation (a burns injury research foundation, founded by Professor Fiona Wood), The Bra Bar (a boutique lingere retail shop with 3 different locations across Perth), Kitsch Bar & Restaurant (an asian style tapas restaurant based in Leederville) and finally Lawless Cooking (a catering company headed by Perth celebrity chef, Iain Lawless). Each client has different needs from us and throughout my blogging you will get a sense of exactly what that is.

As of 3 weeks ago, Gravy re-signed their contract with The Bra Bar. This entailed discussing and re-evaluating ways to better use our time with the client's budget to the most efficient and effective way. This resulted in the decision for myself to basically take over the management of the client and thus made sense for me to be on-site (at their office location in Perth, behind their Perth store) for 5 hours every Wednesday. Ivana still oversees all of the projects undertaken and offers input and guidance where needed, but essentially, I now handle most of The Bra Bar's marketing and communication needs. (How exciting is that!!)

The Bra Bar is very consistent with their needs which means my 5 hours every week will be fairly similar week-to-week (so I will only bore it with you this ONCE I promise!) Facebook is a key communication tool that we use to communicate with The Bra Bar customers. I monitor comments and feedback regularly but will generally only post out communications via Facebook once a week (in this case, every Wednesday). This usually includes posting photos of new arrivals in store with relative prices (and am luckily enough to sometimes score a sale this way!), collaborating special events and current news with The Bra Bar (for example, Wednesday was the last day of summer, so in saying this in a post I also posted a photo of the huge range of stockings we had available; Valentine's Day as you can imagine was a big event for The Bra Bar also! And the list goes on...) and lastly use Facebook as an additional medium to communicate sales and campaigns that The Bra Bar is having. I love Facebook and I really do think it is an amazing tool for companies with low marketing budgets to get their word out there without paying a single cent. It is particularly useful for retail companies; as I have mentioned, it can work as an online store too!

I certainly don't believe Facebook and other social medias are the be all and end all though, especially with The Bra Bar and I will explain why. The Bra Bar employs advertising tools (usually in community papers promoting sales) and I create posters, flyers and newsletters for them also (to the best of my ability with no graphic design experience and the ammaturity of Windows Office programs, but I make do!). We send out a monthly e-newsletter as well as supplementary emails promoting particular campaigns each month to a database that has grown to about 3000 emails now! We obtain these email addresses by doing monthly in-store competitions where Bra Bar customers fill out a competition slip with their contact details to go into the draw of winning a lingere set worth up to $100. Most of The Bra Bar customers have email addresses; but not all (actually, not many at all of the 3000) have Facebook. Social media is generally used to communicate with younger generation people (and I have noticed some people ask to be unsubscribed to the emails are actually Facebook fans and would thus like their information given to them that way) which is why it is very important to keep up all forms of communication to suit all kinds of different people.

In addition to communication tools used to connect with existing customers, we have also recently begun new journeys into building the awareness of The Bra Bar to bring in new customers. This has been done by colloborating with "Show Me Perth" which is a wonderful organisation that helps pull people into the Perth city and promote the wonderful aspects of the city. Another tactic to build awareness was to support some not-for-profit charities such as Miss Universe and Pink Gig. All of these avenues help get The Bra Bar brand out there and most importantly, to specific target audiences.

The Bra Bar really is such an amazing company and it does get tough working with such a small budget and a very niche market, but it is a challenge that I love and am passionate about as it opens my mind and gets me thinking about the endless opportunities that PR offers companies and to not always think advertising is the answer.

Next post I will go into more detail about the other clients of Gravy's, however, throughout my posts I will still have a heavy focus on The Bra Bar, as I have said most of my time is spent there and am heavily involved in that particular client's projects.

Until next time...
--Sarah