The Beginning!

Hello Fellow Internees! :)

It is the end of my fourth day in my placement and although nervous at first to commence, it has been a wonderful learning experience so far.

My internship is in-house with a small Perth based company who run a family of small stores as well as a café’. The stores stock a vast selection from fashion, photography, art, design, stationery and home wares as well as vintage style bags and accessories for both men and women.

So far I really am enjoying every moment of my first couple of days being involved in the PR industry. All members of the staff have been incredibly welcoming and helpful, which has been very comforting in a new environment.

My tasks from the past few days have included responding to “call outs” from editors, journalists and stylists from a variety of publications, distributing stock samples, collecting media clippings and updating the current media contact database.

The task of responding to a call out involves meeting the requests of editors, journalists and stylists which may include selecting appropriate products to meet a theme for an upcoming issue, sending through high or low resolution images and key product information as well as distributing stock samples if needed. This is a task I have thoroughly enjoyed so far and it has increased my understanding of the importance of utilising and building strong relations, as the exposure gained is invaluable to generating public awareness for the company. I have also learnt that it is vital to be efficient in distributing any necessary stock samples and maintaining all product records, as if the company is efficient they will develop a positive reputation. 

The company has also just released their new Autumn/ Winter catalogue, which is why it has been a crucial task to ensure the media contact database is up to date. It has also been very exciting over the past few days to learn how to use new processes such as MailChimp, which allows announcements of campaigns or emails to be sent out to large quantities of contacts at the one time. By using Mailchimp to announce the A/W catalogue release, the email is able to be personalised and directed towards only the targeted media contacts further encouraging the development of stronger relations. 

Well that's it from me for now,  Looking forward to the weeks to come!

Helen