Putting together the pieces for the Toodyay Race Day

Hi everyone,

It’s less than a week out from the Toodyay Picnic Race Day, the major project I have been working on whilst completing my placement at Platform Communications, I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on some of the key tasks I have performed and the success we have had to date.

My role was primarily focused on gaining sponsorship for the race day. This involved sending out sponsorship proposals, follow up phone calls and ultimately, positioning the race day as a great event to sponsor by supporting the town of Toodyay.

To check out all of the fantastic sponsorship we have secured visit the Toodyay Race Club website here.  

Ellie, another intern and my partner-in-crime at Platform was responsible for building relationships with media contacts and gaining coverage and exposure in various local and State wide publications and radio stations. Whenever Ellie needed help with all things media I was by her side, eager to see everything she had been working on and learning.

Along with our supervisor, Ellie and myself spent most of our days working on tasks associated with the Toodyay Race Day as well as all of the other things that would pop up around the office.

Some key success points to note:

• Tim Gossage, Channel Ten Sports Presenter is the event emcee, and Mia Davies, Minister for Water, Forestry and Deputy Leader of the National Party was secured as the official event patron.
•  A media partnership with The Sunday Times/Perth Now has been secured providing advertising space valued in excess of $32,000 and promotion of an online competition run by Perth Now.
• Media partnerships with Radio West and 6PR have been secured with some fantastic coverage.
• Sponsorship of prizes for the competition was secured including a limousine transfer to and from the race course sponsored by Chandon Limousines, an overnight accommodation voucher, beauty voucher, hair voucher and hats/fascinators.
•  Sponsorship of race names as well as a live band sponsor and Fashions of the Field sponsor was secured.
• The Racing and Wagering Institute of WA have come on board as a sponsor, through the TAB to be granted exclusive naming rights of the event and Toodyay Cup as well as promotion to TAB’s mailing lists.
• Editorial published in the Avon Valley Advocate, Avon Gazette, Hills Gazette, Joondalup Times, Midland Times, Kalamunda Reporter and Wanneroo Times.
• Promotion/coverage of the event on 6PR and Radio West stations.

To see the ‘latest stories’ about the race club, including the competition hosted by The Sunday Times/Perth Now click here. 

It has been such a rewarding experience to be involved in the development and implementation of a ‘PR Plan’ with outcomes that have been successful in accordance with the objectives that were defined at the beginning of the project.

From defining our objectives to brainstorming our tactics and implementing these, I have been involved in every step along the way. Along with everyone at Platform I am really looking forward to the event and seeing how all of our work will contribute to the success of the day and showcase the town of Toodyay.  

Starting from scratch: The Toodyay Picnic Race Day 2014

Hi everyone,

As an intern at Platform Communications, my work mainly consists of the marketing and communications efforts for the Toodyay Picnic Race Day 2014, an in-kind project that Platform has taken on board.

On my first day at Platform, another intern and myself had a briefing on the Toodyay Race Day and how we would be involved as a consultancy.  We were given a great action plan with all of our tasks and due dates. With so many tasks to perform, I quickly understood how important this detailed checklist was, and that I would often refer to it as my bible.

Objectives

One of my first tasks was to develop the objectives relating to our campaign. It was a really strange, yet wonderful feeling to actually complete something for a real consultancy. In most of our Public Relations units we had been taught how to write objectives over and over again and written these in our Public Relations plans. I left the office that day feeling really excited that what I had studied was about to be put in to place.

The main aims of our campaign include engaging members of the local community whilst attracting visitors from Perth. We are also aiming to showcase the town of Toodyay as a vibrant, livable town in addition to its solid reputation as a tourist destination.

To achieve our goals, a large part of our work is geared towards generating sponsorship, attracting a high caliber of VIP guests to the event and gaining media coverage.

VIP Invitation

A couple of days later I had worked on various other tasks for the Toodyay Race Day including developing a list of VIP guests, a spreadsheet of potential organisations to target for sponsorship, and writing an invitation letter to the Hon. Mia Jane Davies, Minister of Water and Forestry; Deputy Leader of the National Party (WA) to attend the event. Ms Davies has accepted our invitation and is confirmed as the Event Patron. As a widely known and admired figure in the Avon Valley and Perth, we were all very excited that she had accepted our invitation.

Website

A huge task we were involved with on our first two weeks involved developing a website for the Toodyay Race Club. The event has never had any sort of communications or marketing efforts utilised in previous years, and so we were really starting from scratch.

It was definitely a challenge trying to obtain information from different parties to use for the website, as well as finding time with my supervisor and director to edit and approve the copy that we had developed.

After some slight delays, we finally had the website up and running with the help of the design team at Platform.  This was a huge step for us as we finally had something that potential sponsors could refer to and a place to direct people to for more information.

You can visit the website here.







Facebook

We have also updated the Facebook page to reflect the website. If you are interested, make sure you like the page here.






Challenges and Reflection

A major challenge involved with the website was competing deadlines for different departments within Platform. The design team were responsible for setting up the website and all graphic design elements involved. The design team member who was helping us with the website was often required to work on more urgent tasks first. As an in-kind project, this often means that tasks relating to the Toodyay Race Day need to be pushed back in order to finish more urgent, billable tasks first.

I quickly began to understand the fast-paced world of a consultancy. With competing deadlines and managing multiple clients, I cannot begin to imagine a dull moment at Platform Communications. From my experiences so far I can definitely say that a consultancy provides a wonderful environment to learn and develop essential communications skills as well as time management and great inter-personal skills that will assist me in my future career choices.

If you have made it to the end of my long blog post, and have some free time, check out the website for Platform Communications. You might be interested to see some of the clients that Platform work with and some of the projects they have completed to date through the link here.


I hope everyone is finding their internship as stimulating and challenging, yet rewarding as I have so far.

Rebecca.

Throwing myself into a consultancy

Hi everyone,

I thought it was a good idea that some students had posted a general/introduction blog and so I thought I would follow this trend before writing posts specifically related to my internship.

My name is Rebecca Keating and I am in my final semester studying a Bachelor of Commerce with a double major in Public Relations and Marketing at Curtin's Bentley campus.

I am doing my internship at a wonderful consultancy called Platform Communications.

After I had finished my exams for Semester one I started to become quite stressed at the thought of applying for and finding a suitable internship to complete for the Professional Placement unit in Semester two.

I really didn't know how to apply, who to apply to and most of all- what to do about my full time job. I put if off for a while and then decided I had worked so hard during my studies and wanted to get out of the world of retail so I decided that I needed to put graduating university at the top of my list, and for this- I needed an internship!

A wonderful friend of mine gave me a list of some great consultancies and organisations who use in-house consultants to apply to. She gave me the advice of applying off my own back and if this went no where she could then step in and help me.

So off I went and applied for a whole load of places. Most were great and got back to me within a couple of days letting me know they had filled their intern positions. A couple of directors even personally responded with a list of other places to try. So I did this and sent out some more applications.

I sent an application to Platform Communications (a firm I was recommended to try) and the next day I had a phone call with an interview lined up for two days later where I was then offered the position on the spot.

On this particular Friday I went straight to my retail job after my interview, handed in my notice and started at Platform the following week ready to be briefed about the in-kind project I am working on.

Platform Communications is a small consultancy who provide many aspects of communications, marketing and design to their clients, specialising in the energy and resource sector.

Within Platform I am predominantly working on an in-kind project; the Toodyay Picnic Race Day to increase exposure of the event, gain sponsorship and showcase the town of Toodyay to local community members and visitors from Perth. I also help with any other work that comes up and assist the director and seniors in making sure that their work life is running smoothly- often the biggest challenge of all!

I am learning a huge amount of things every day and I will be sure to share some tips and tricks in my upcoming blog posts.

I hope everyone has had success in finding a great internship opportunity.

Until next time-

Rebecca.