It's about the journey, not the destination..

The last day of my PR internship was hectic. It was treated as any other day, busy busy busy. I was responsible for sourcing more potential clientele for one of our clients, F45 Fitness. I was also tasked with finding local online media that could potentially be contacted to support our client.

 It seemed like a blur - how quickly those 20 days had passed me by, and I felt like I had learned so much, and yet had so much more to learn about the industry and what the future in PR would hold for me.. It made me realise that business stops for nobody, and it's not like a retail job where you can just go home after a long day and forget about it - no, it is an urgent, full-time lifestyle, and with the amount of responsibility which was placed on my team, I could see how much it permeated into everyone's everyday lives.

This PR Internship really made me think hard about what kind of business or industry I'd like to work for later on in life. I had a great time at The Brand Hierarchy, however, reading through others' experiences in their blog posts has made me realise what a different and unique experience it was in itself. Not many people get to experience working first-hand under a small business, and I was fortunate enough to land myself in that position.

I am grateful to Karlee for taking me on whilst already having a lot going on in terms of business restructuring and expansion, and I will never forget my experience at The Brand Hierarchy.

Wendy
1615 9260

An internship at the Department of Transport was the Right Move!

An internship at the Department of Transport was the Right Move!

Interning at the Department of Transport I have had the opportunity to be involved in the promotion, maintenance and ongoing development of a new Transport app, Right Move Perth.

Right Move Perth is a new free smartphone App created by the Transport portfolio – Department of Transport, Main Roads WA and the Public Transport Authority (Transperth) – to better inform Perth commuters regarding incidents, conditions and events that may impact their journey within the Perth metropolitan area.

The new App provides real-time information on incidents, including roadworks, crashes, traffic signal faults, to train and bus service disruptions, major events taking place, project information and weather warnings. Right Move Perth also lets you save your favourite routes and notifies you of incidents that might affect your trip around metropolitan Perth.

 

 

Right Move Perth is available on both iOS (Apple) and Android platforms and can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play for free. If you haven’t download them now!!

 

Currently I am working with my internship coordinator on rolling out a communications strategy for Right Move Perth.

 

This has included:

 

Recruiting and supervising eight flyer distributers

On April 1 and 3 eight distributers recruited from Integrity staffing sported Right Move Perth T-shirts and distributed iPhone shaped flyers throughout the CBD during peak morning, lunch and afternoon periods. I was tasked with liaising with Integrity staffing to find suitable people for the job, mapping out the locations for the staff to be placed around the CBD and also periodically checked on the distributors throughout the day supplying them with additional materials and answering any questions they had.

 

After each day of flyer distribution a rise in the app downloads was recorded through google analystics which was satisfying to know that the work I was doing was contributing to the success of the app.

Twitter page

@rightmoveperth is the official Twitter page for the app. My internship coordinator and I worked on a tweet schedule which included daily tweets about events, planned maintenance, CBD projects and tips for using the app. These were then entered into a system called hootdeck which automatically tweets that are scheduled on a certain day and time, pretty cool!

 

This task also involved responding to any questions or feedback tweeted on the page and retweeting appropriate posts from MRWA and Transperth pages. Initially I was incredibly nervous when completing this task as I was conscious of tweeting correct and professional information with no spelling or grammatical errors to the 575 followers of the page (which includes news and radio pages, perthonalities and members of the general public), I also didn’t want to retweet anything controversial (political or otherwise) that could result in negative media or perceptions from followers. However once I got the hang of it I actually enjoyed the interaction with users and reading their comments on the app.

 

 

Feedback email:

Similar to this I also respond to any queries or feedback that comes to rightmoveperth@transport.wa.gov.au  the Right Move Perth email address. This is the primary source of communication for users to reach the Right Move Perth team. This involved coordinating responses, contributing to the resolution of issues and appropriately referring issues for resolution.

If you have downloaded the app and have any queries or want to provide feedback, make sure you email the above address and I will be happy to respond to you!!

Over the next few weeks I will be working with the Right Move Perth team to decide development options for stage two of the app which will include things such as parking information and cycling.

 

Two completely different clients

 Throughout my work placement I have had the opportunity to work for two completely different clients, both of which are run by the same group of people. The two businesses Metric Promotions, and Pilerats differ greatly, and have allowed me to use a variety of skills that I have learnt over my studies.

Within Metric promotions, there are a number of events and promotional activities, which I have been able to assist in. One of the most notable aspects of the events industry is the amount of forward planning that goes into each event. For the monthly ‘Speakeasy’, an Australian musical act is brought to Perth to perform. One of my jobs has been to research bands or DJ’s that may be suitable for the event, and these acts are often booked up to six months in advance. This means that there is often a lot of research required to ensure that they will be suitable. For example, they may have recently released an album, or have gained media attention for playing at a festival. This research has also proved useful in preparing for another of Metric promotions annual events; Wonderland, a music festival that was run for the first time last year.

One of the more exciting projects that I have been working on is the launch and creation of Pilerats; an interactive iPad magazine. Pilerats is a relatively new project, and I have been lucky enough to be able to contribute ideas to assist in the promotion of the magazine. We are approaching the launch date for the magazine so there is a lot to be done in terms of promotion through many different avenues such as social media; which means refining the blog, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Content is also another area in which I have been able to help out, this is where I most notice the obvious crossover between public relations and journalistic skills. I have helped out in drafting interview questions for the magazine, which I did find a little daunting, as I have never conducted an interview before. Drafting questions for a real interview made me understand the importance of the sequence of the questions, as well as attempting to somewhat predict the answers before the interview takes place. After the interview was conducted, I was happy to hear that the subject of the interview enjoyed the questions, as they were things that he had not been asked before. I will keep you guys posted to the release of the iPad magazine and you will be able to see the interview that I helped draft when it is released.

Being able to work on both projects, which are completely different has almost given me the experience of working in a consultancy environment. I am lucky in the sense that the work I do in a day can be quite varied depending on the project I am working on. I think I prefer this variety in a work day in comparison to possibly working on the same client all day, although I have never exactly only worked for one client at a time. 

Formal Training vs On The Job Skills

Throughout my learning at university, I have often been advised that many public relations professionals have often not undergone university degrees, and have instead simply undertaken on-the-job training. Within my placement I have witnessed this first hand as all of my colleagues have been thrown into careers of promotions and events management, and have no university education in the area.

Now that I have been working for a few weeks, it is obvious to see how this is possible. My co-workers have all had to learn the importance of documents such as media releases, media kits, and event run sheets. When you are placed in a situation, where you learn through practice rather than theory, it becomes a necessity to learn quickly through practice. This is an area in which I feel I have been able to assist in my placement. Both Metric Promotions and Pilerats are relatively young businesses and I have been able to suggest the most appropriate and professional use of these documents for different aspects of the business.

In addition to this, I now fully understand the importance of writing at a professional level. On my first day, I was asked to write a blog post for the Pilerats blog. This was something I found somewhat challenging, even though I believe that I am a competent writer, I was now required to write in a less formal, more relaxed manner. I found this a contrast to the usual professional, formal manner in which I have experience in writing for university. I hope to be able to inject more personality into my blog posts I write in the future, and I think this will be a great chance to get more practice in writing.

Here is a link to my blog post if anyone would like to have a read!

http://pilerats.com/fashion/as-bad-as-i-guana-be

I have some exciting opportunities lately, which i will share with everyone in the next few posts.

Good Food, Good Wine...Good Promo!

The Good Food and Wine Show was in Perth on July 13-15 and as a client of Devahasdin the lead up to the event was busy and also exciting!

In my first week a promotion was launched for Plaza Arcade in Perth City (another one of Devahasdin’s clients) with The Good Food and Wine Show. The promotion was to increase awareness of both clients and encourage more shoppers within Plaza Arcade.

In my second week I was given the task of overseeing the promotion down at Plaza. At first I was nervous about being given such a responsibility but the nerves quickly disappeared after starting and I was actually quite excited to be able to learn first hand all the different aspects that go in to coordinating such a promo. Within this role I was responsible to visit Plaza each day I was in the office and liaise with each retailer to gain their feedback on how they thought customers were responding to the promotion.

Some retailers were friendly and more than helpful, others weren’t very interested! As I currently work in retail I can understand both sides. Trying to promote your own in store deals plus informing customers of the wider centre promo can be tough and can definitely annoy those customers who just want to get in, buy their product and go!

Nevertheless I persevered visiting retailer after retailer, restocking their entry forms and flyers as I went. On my visits I was also responsible for collecting all the entry forms from the entry barrel and once back at the office counting the number of entries and storing them safely.

Overall the promotion was very successful and being able to oversee it was a great experience mainly because it allowed me to further my own confidence and professionalism. Liaising with clients face to face is different than through email or over the phone and clear communication is extremely important.

Throughout my internship I have noticed that my previous worries about making phone calls or sending emails have significantly reduced. I am now more confident and feel more comfortable to do these simple, everyday and essential tasks with ease.

Already the experience I have gained throughout my internship has been invaluable and I have been able to step outside of my comfort zone, which has definitely paid off. 

Caitlyn

it's just not the same without Gravy... Part 5

This week was all things Kitsch! You don’t have to stop reading; this doesn’t mean I will be talking about tasteless, unrefined matters (although, it may contain tacky images), but I mean Kitsch Bar and Restaurant – Gravy’s fifth client presented to you thus far. Kitsch is owned by Iain Lawless – who also owns Lawless Cooking, a client of Gravy’s that I spoke of in my last post. It’s an Asian style bar/restaurant situated in Leederville that has a very eccentric, untailored style to it.

Similar to Lawless Cooking, Gravy handles their promotional communications (e-Newsletters, social media accounts, email enquiries, etc.) and is in charge of the marketing and management of their cooking classes which are held throughout the year on Monday nights (a night that Kitsch is closed). My job with Kitsch is to respond to email enquiries – some of which I redirect to the General Manager of Kitsch if it is regarding a restaurant booking or function; otherwise it is generally concerning a cooking class in which I then inform people of, book them in, and confirm their payments. Gravy promotes the cooking classes via Facebook and e-Newsletters to Kitsch’s database. I have created posters for all of them to make it a bit more eye-catching and to get people’s attention. You can see a few of them below:

  (a small bio of Paul Cherry is yet to be added to this one)

And there are many more! These are just my favourites J

As you can see, it's not just Kitsch chefs that participate in these cooking classes; we are simply the host for the classes and chefs from all over Perth are asked to demonstrate their own special cooking styles in a class tailored for them. It is a great way to engage and cater for all sorts of food lovers over Perth.

As for the posters, I had no guidance or direction given to me when creating them, let alone any templates or formats that I had to work by; so I was free to go about it however I wanted (which I LOVE)! I obviously stuck to the Kitsch style and theme which is retro, a bit crazy, crude and (obviously) kitschy. Google was my best friend through the process of creating these – trying to find images that portray a certain cooking style in a kitschy way isn’t as easy as you might think! And as I have said time and time again – I am by no means a graphic designer! This means I have to make do with what Google and Microsoft Office gives me… but they don’t turn out so bad if I may say so myself J

As I said, we send these and other promotions and communications to our database. This database is quite well developed as we have a birthday promotion set up so that every person on our database receives a voucher for Kitsch to use in the couple of week around their birthday. You will be surprised how many sign-ups we get from having this promotion in place. I am also in charge of distributing these vouchers out and have a reminder system set up on outlook for all of our customer’s birthdays.  It is also very well received by our customers as it is a nice gesture tailored specifically for them. You can see where you are able to sign up for this promotion on the Kitsch website: Kitsch Bar and Restaurant.

Kitsch is probably the least demanding and the most constant of all of our clients. Tasks never usually change and all of the processes needed for our correspondence are in place. All in all, an extremely smooth running operation – something VERY uncommon in the consultancy industry!

Until next time...

--Sarah

Inhouse internship

Hi all,

I have now completed 14 of my 20 days at inhouse group, a marketing and business development consultancy in Mandurah.

I have been appointed as PR and marketing officer at inhouse and this involves primarily event management, media liason and promotions.

As I mentioned in previous posts, inhouse group is the creator of iPhone App Chirp Deals (it's soon to be launched in Perth and I highly recommend it in fact I used it at a restaurant last night to get a free entree!), which provides users with saving at local business with a code given in the App. Inhouse group held a launch party on the 25th August for the App, which featured performances by Triple J DJ Nina Las Vegas, Fremantle band San Cisco and local act The Cabarets (who have now made it into the state finals of National Campus Band Comp!). This event ran very smoothly, though the attendance numbers were not quite what we had hoped, perhaps due to it being a cold rainy Thursday night and noone is really keen to head out!

I didn't have much to do at this event as most of the setting up was done by the venue so i just attended with some friends and had a good time!

Since the launch party I have been promoting The Cabarets (check out this article I wrote http://mandurahyoungandrestless.com/main-article/37-local-boys-in-band-comp-state-finals).

I have also been doing a lot of promotion for artist Emma Blyth. My article has been published on Scoop Online (http://www.scoop.com.au/Region/Western-Australia/ArtAndAntiques/Emma-Blyth-Artist) as well as in the local newspaper, so I am quite proud of my work getting out there! I have submitted the article to a number of other online and print publications, so hopefully this works well for Emma and she begins to see some results!

I have also been doing some marketing for inhouse group itself, which has involved writing and article for a local magazine Mandurah Life, writing print advertisement briefs (thinking up headlines that grab attention as well as refelcting values and practices of the organisation in only a couple of words can be quite difficult!) as well as creating google ads and many other smaller tasks.

I am enjoying my placement at inhouse group and hope everyone else is enjoying theirs too!

Eva Buckley

14271599

Inhouse Internship

This has been my third week (6th day) in my internship at inhouse group Pty Ltd, a marketing and business development company in Mandurah. This week I've not had too much to do as my supervisors have been out of the office a bit and so they're not always here to delegate regular tasks to me - usually just an email or two through the day with a guideline of tasks so I've been getting those done.

As I said in my last post I am acting as PR and Marketing officer at inhouse, which has involved coordinating the promotion of an upcoming launch party for their iPhone App, Chirp Deals. Nina Las Vegas (Triple J DJ), San Cisco (a Fremantle band) and The Cabarets (a local act) will be performing at the event so I've been setting up interviews between the local journalists and the artists' publicists, which sometimes involves attending to these tasks out of my office hours of Thursday and Friday - these things need to be done and with deadlines present and me being somewhat in charge of the PR for the event I do occasionally do some organising on other days.

Earlier this week a Curtin journalism student called me to ask for an interview as she was doing an assignment on the launch party and wanted to get some information from inhouse's own PR and marketing officer - made me feel rather important!

This week I have been contacting all the business involved in the Chirp Deals App (which involves business offering discounts and deals that can be redeemed by users of the smartphone app) and offering them free tickets to the event to use themselves or give away to customers, staff or clients. I am also rounding up friends who will put up some posters around town for some free tickets (but am not too sure of the rules and regulations with regard to posters in public places - anyone know anything?).

I have also been looking into the promotion of local artist Emma Blyth and her newly launched website, and how to expand awareness of her artwork and increase her customer base geographically. I have written a press release to possibly go to Perth magazines and online art publications, and brainstormed ways to uplift her website and facebook site.

Though less full on than my first week (due to being mostly left to my own devices and conducting a lot of light research) I am still enjoying my time at inhouse group and am looking forward to the launch party (It's on August 25th if anyone is interesting in attending)!

Hope everyone is enjoying their placements!

Eva Buckley

14271599

Hurry! Spaces are filling quickly!

Hi everyone

The Retirement Village Association (RVA) is running a promotion (advertising campaign) in WA with the aim of working on increasing the penetration rate of retirement villages. This is because within the over 55 market in Australia, 5% are living in retirement villages. There is an untapped market of 95% that have opted to stay in their home or choose another alternative to senior housing options.

The ‘Retire in Style’ magazine is a lift out that is distributed in community newspaper group. For this project to be viable, more advertising dollars need to be raised to support this project. My final task was to draft a letter to companies that cater products and services to seniors and convince them that this is an opportunity they do not want to miss out on and then record a list of the companies approached.

The challenge I faced in this task was the high volume of companies that could be targeted. Although this is preferable, as it means there is a greater chance in gaining advertising for the lift out, I had limited time to develop the list of companies that should be targeted. Because of this I prioritised what companies should be targeted.

This is the second year the lift out is being published. Next time to overcome the limited amount of time to approach these companies, the list that was developed this time should be referred back to and added upon for next year.

Encouraging companies to advertise so that the magazine can be functional confirms to me that companies place a small proportion of their budget into promotional efforts. To be successful in running an effective campaign requires a Public Relation practitioner to adopt effective strategies and tactics.

If there is one unit all degrees should have as compulsory, it would be to do an internship! Not only has it allowed me to apply my theoretical with my practical skills but it looks fantastic on my resume! Since the beginning of my placement, I have been provided with an opportunity to use many public relations tools and to add my own personality whilst doing it.

I hope you all have enjoyed your placement.

See you, or like the Italians say ‘ciao!’