Developing A Communication Strategy Essay For Mega Lighting Company.

Develop a communication strategy to address the problem or opportunity identified in the client brief. The brief should address an issue that includes communication with an external public. It should not focus on a product. After compiling a comprehensive situation analysis students develop the full strategy for their client including key messages, communication tactics, evaluation mechanisms, timeline and budget. Strategic plans are tested and refined in collaborative tutorial workshops and online discussion group

Mega Lighting’s Profile

Public relations can be referred to a tool or a process, which helps an organization in maintaining good relationships with the external public. Public relations tools are extensively helpful in maintaining a balanced relation with the external public. This is very important for the flourishing of business and its sustenance of success (Dodge 2015).

Mega Lighting is a family owned business based in Australia. It has two retail stores in Sydney such as Auburn and Castle Hill. They had started their business in the year 2002 and since then, they are continually evolving as a successful Company. The continuous development of business has broadened the competition with its competitors such as JD lighting, Beacon lighting, Cosmo lighting and online lighting. They have been able to produce the lowest prices for the lighting products mainly because of the facts that it receives high amount of imported lighting products directly from China. However, the company could not prove its worth in the most advanced platform of shopping, which is the online mode of shopping (Grunig 2013).

The main purpose of the assignment is to conduct a campaign for the Company, which could address the issue to the higher management and encourage them to provide some necessary solutions to the addressed issues.

The lighting industry is very well popular among the all classes of families. High class and middle class family have their own requirements of lighting products. Some use lighting for the luxury purpose like table lamp in most of the high-class families. However, middle class families use some kinds of lighting bulbs that are more affordable to thjem. Irrespective of the nature of buying, lighting industry is a potential industry. This is because of the fact that this industry is attracting many small sized companies for experiencing high-end business profitability. This assignment thus reveals a good competition in between some companies of Sydney of which Mega Lighting is one name. The company has high potential as it offers cheapest pricing and high standard customer service but even after that, this is receiving high-end challenges from some of its competitors. 

The organization is mainly a lighting product retailer, which has largely captivated the market of Sydney by offering comparative lower prices for the products. The incapable performance of the Company in online mode of shopping has encouraged the initiation of a campaign, which could actually encourage the higher management of the Company for the restructuring of their website shopping mode. The company has left a good impression on the Sydney market for its low product pricing. However, the success of the company is not accompanied by any website mode of sopping. The modern era of business is seriously deploying online mode of sopping for receiving higher recognition for their products. They are even going for the e commerce style of shopping platforms, which is captivating the market hugely. However, the Mega Lighting Company has not been able to capitalize on the provided chances (Dozier, Grunig and Grunig 2013).

PR is very important for promoting and doing campaigns of some products and services. The conduction of PR is widely advisable for the marketing communication of the Mega Lighting Company. This would help company come closer to the customer’s requirement and make the announcement related to the new service launch. However, any PR is incomplete without any through research of some of the following:

Industry background

Enquiring the client – This is important because the companies should have enough ideas of the purpose of the PR, the desired goals of the activity and understanding the client’s requirement. Moreover, PR should be designed after acknowledging all the requirements of the targeted customers and the desired outcome.

Selecting the right market – It is of utmost importance, as this would help plan according to the target market segmentation. The PR activities would be different for the teens and for the adults. The first of the activities would be to identify the correct market segment first and then plan accordingly.  

Selecting the media – This is another very important factor as the chosen media should be both the client and the company oriented. The chosen client should be pleased with the chosen media. On a same note, the chosen media should be cost-effective and time saving.

The main weakness of the Mega Lighting Company is their unavailability on the online mode of shopping. The world is now dominated with the effect of e-commerce; however, Mega Lighting does not have any sound responses to the created urgency. The company and an e-commerce site but that is not active as it should be. This is because of the fact that there is an urgency to have an established e-commerce website, which could actually provide solution to the identified problem.

The media coverage is limited, which is why the relations with the local customers are not that profound as of some modern day organizations. For a small sized company such as Mega Lighting possibility to spend a high amount of investments on PR mode of marketing communications. However, PR can also be conducted by minimizing the budget, which is only possible if the company hires some agency that offers minimal PR activities at minimal rates.

There is no such awareness in the Mega Lighting Company about the importance of Public Relations. This is because of the size of the company and its financial capabilities, which has not generated any intense feeling about the public relations. Indeed, public relations related awareness is of utter importance to the Mega Lighting Company as it is necessary for realizing the necessity of PR marketing communications (Smith 2013).

The media contacts for the company are minimal, which is why the company has not been able to make a sound impression on the Sydney market. The company is yet to be featured in any popular TV show, so that; it could capture a wide range of attention of the customers in fewer times. The company is yet to be featured in some popular magazines. This is because of the fact that featuring in a magazine is a god source to reach to an enhanced number of customers (Hendrix, Hayes and Kumar 2012).

Conducting a PR activity can well attract a high investment. This is because of the fact that the PR marketing communication would require the hiring of some photographers, which would require significant investments. For small-sized companies, budgeting is an issue as it is very difficult to decide that what strategy should be used to meet with the budgeting issue. There is one solution to the problem, which is the Percentage of Sales Method, which governs the investment making from some of the percentage of the sales. This is indeed safe and productive also (Newsom, Turk and Kruckeberg 2012).

Situation analysis of the organization

The Mega Lighting Company has performed exceptionally well being only the small-seized family owned business. The company is great in customer service or after the sales service. It is also very good ad probably the one company in Sydney, which is offering the lowest prices for the lighting products. This is because of the fact that the company is in direct relationship with the Chinese market for the importing of lighting products. This is one of those factors, which have contributed hugely in the low cost offering of lighting products. Nevertheless, the raw material in the Asian countries or that to in China is in specific comparatively cheaper. Hence, the lighting product offered by the company is the lowest in Sydney. They are also specialized in offering the products at the discounted rates. It has also a wide range of different lighting products collection (Cutlip 2013).

Despite of all these strengths, which the small business has, it is extremely suffering from not having any significant appearance on the website or online platforms. The company seriously lacks in terms of online presence. Nevertheless, the modern era of business is highly dominated by the effect of online platforms. Numerous of companies are earning a high profit from their online presence. This is something, which has restricted the enormous growth of the Company. Moreover, online presence for a retailing company in particular has become an essential part of the business. Online facilities do enable customers to go online and shop their desired products. This is also time-effective, which is another fact that the customers especially the youth generation like the online mode of shopping (Kunczik 2016).

The growing demand for the online mode of shopping is the growing opportunity for the company. Interestingly, the scheduled campaign is another opportunity, which the organization is generating for the further growth. Nevertheless, the market demand for the lighting products is another asset for the company, which is providing sufficient opportunity to the company to capitalize. The PR marketing communication is thus offering a wide range of opportunities to the Mega Lighting Company as PR would help the company incoming closer to the media and the customers. PR is a god source to be in media generated news, which is an effective medium to convey the message to a wide area of world. This would cost certain investments but the potentiality of the company to offer cheapest product pricing and the utmost customer service would certainly help boost the business even further. The highly incremented competition from some of its competitors in Sydney such as Online Lighting is further expanding the area of growth for the lighting industry in Sydney. This is nothing but a highly incremented opportunity for the Mega Lighting Company (Culbertson and Chen 2013).

The biggest threat for the company is its absence from the online media of shopping, and no significant contact with the media, which other competitors are utilizing. The absence of the company from the online media platform has contributed in the reduction of growth for the company. The e-commerce platform of the company has not so far produced any significant revenues, which is why the company is considering the renovation of its ecommerce websites. The absence of the company from the online platform is nothing but a big business loss, which can only be compensated if the company reinvents itself on the online platforms. Another biggest threat for the company is the rising competition from its competitors such as Online Lighting (Stacks 2016).

Research in PR

Public relations can be referred to a process to interact with the external public. The importance of public relations in business is very high as the rate of public interactions thus actually is helpful for the enhancement of business even further. Several of resources are there for the interaction with the customers such as online platform. On the online platform, there are itself numerous of ways to interact with the customers such as online magazines, video ads, Facebook and YouTube. These are some of the ways; however, the list is even long. The main purpose behind the varied kinds of interaction’s resources is to get closer to the customer’s feelings. This indeed is very much important in modern era of business. The modern era of business is not just run by any physical layout such as retailing shops, malls and other counters. It is in actuality more than just the physical interaction. The modern era of business, just do not rely only on the appealing nature of the products. In actuality, customers are moulded towards the particular product by means of several kinds of promotional stunts (Olasky 2013).

Public relations have often remained an integral part of any kinds of business but it has broadened into its area in the modern age. The modern age business has a broader meaning, which does not leave any way of reaching to the customers. The different kind of ways, which facilitates the interaction of customers with varied kinds of products, is nothing but the form of public relations. This is one area, which needs a serious repairing for the Mega lighting Company. The company is very low in the public relations business strategies. The company has however set some goals and objective to have better relations with its customers but those strategies would certainly take time to deliver the desired outcome. The company is targeting every sort of resource, which are there for the interaction with the public. From Facebook to the popular TV show such as ‘The Block’, the company is not leaving any strategy unturned. However, those strategies do certainly require a fair amount of time. The company itself understands the importance of public relations, which is because of the fact that the company is planning for a campaign featuring every set aspirations (Lee and McGovern 2013).

The goal is characterized by such term, which expresses the attainment of a set target with the help of newly added strategies. Following are some of goals that the Mega Lighting has targeted in order to attain the maximum returns of the PR marking communications:

• To increase the awareness in Sydney about the product and the company
• To earn maximum likes in Facebook
• To be featured in some popular magazines such as Better Homes and gardens
• To be featured in some most popular TV shows such as ‘The Block’

Following are some of the objectives of doing the PR marketing communications:

• To get closer to the media
• To be in media for having a good interaction with the customers
• To enhance the public interaction capabilities of the Company
• To attain an highly incremented attention of customers

The key publics of the company are to target those customers that need lighting in their homes. Apart from that, it is also targeting those customers, which are buying the products from its competitors. This looks a good move by the company as the company is targeting the maximum customer base with the campaign. They just do not want to leave any stone unturned. They are rather targeting the entire customer of the lighting products; it also includes those, which were not the part of this company. On a same note, it included some other companies, which are the competitors of the Mega Lighting Company (Coombs and Holladay 2013).

Problems and weaknesses

The key messages of the company are as following:

• Cheapest prices in Sydney
• Prices that is beating the competitor’s strategies
• Exclusively imported lighting products from China

The messages, which are planned to be included in the campaign is already dominating the customers. The comparatively cheaper pricing of the lighting products have always remained an asset for the company. This has remained a winning strategy over its competitors. The exclusive importing of products from China is the one factor behind the low cost offering of the product. The company despite of its absence on the online media of shopping is moulding a significant number of customers into its favour simple because of the above-mentioned facts. To highlight the above-mentioned assets of the company would be helpful for the successful completion of the campaign (Spicer 2013).

The term public refers to those who are connected to an organization either by mean of shopping relations or by the relations with the company by being its other stakeholders. They play an important role in supporting and boosting the sales for the company. This is very important for a company that it cares its publics with utter cares as this would provide them utter benefits in the market (Spicer 2013).

Following are the slit of key publics of the Mega Lighting Company:

• Project managers
• Customers
• Marketing personals
• Different commercial premises that uses lighting products
• Retailers
• The local government
• The different employees of the company

The company is choosing a wide range of communication tactics, which looks very effective because of the highly incremented prevalence of most of the options in the modern era of business. The renovation of the existing website would be extremely helpful in redefining the shopping experience of its customers. It would not only redefine the shopping experience of its customers but it would also attract those customers, which could not ever become the part of the company because of the absence of a website shopping. Following are the list of communication tactics, which the campaign team are deploying for the further operational process of the company (Franklin and Parton 2014):

• Newly designed website
• Invention of e-commerce page
• Availability on the Facebook page
• Promotions of ad videos
• Seasonal emails of promotions
• Flyers and posters
• Featuring of content on the TV shows
• Featuring of article on the home magazines

The campaign is featuring all the latest and the traditional form of business and publicity stunt. Renovated websites and the e-commerce page is the newly form of shopping, which has created a revolution among the shopping lovers. Especially, the youth generation is inclined towards the website mode of shopping. This is because of the fact that the youth generation is very much onto the internet using in the computers or the Smartphones. They find this sort of shopping very familiar to their kinds of thinking. It is also time effective, which is one feature that attracts a mass towards the online mode of shopping (Rice and Atkin 2012).

The main reason behind the selection of PR as a communication tactics to address the company to the media and to indirectly interact with the customers and their queries. PR is one of those communication tactics, which is widely popular and best way to have some promotional stunts for the products. The reason behind choosing the communication tactics is the usability of all the mentioned form of communication in the modern era of business. The featuring of the content on the TV show is perhaps one of the best ways to capture the attention of mass people at one time. Some of the TV shows are highly popular such as ‘The Block’. Featuring the content in such TV shows holds a good probability to reach to the maximum number of customers at one time. This is because of the fat that the TV shows have already their fan followers. Therefore, by means of TV shows, the content about the product would reach to the maximum people (Hinson 2012). Another effective communication ways, which are highlighted, is the video ad of the product. This is other very effective kinds of promotional stunts. Posting of videos on some online platform such as YouTube is the potential ways to reach to thousands of people in no time. This is perhaps become the most common promotional stunts for the entire range of business as numerous of youths are following YouTube on a daily basis (Holtzhausen 2013). Facebook is undoubtedly one of the most popular medium of displaying the products and receiving the likes. The numbers of likes thus say about the level of popularity for the product. This is one of the best medium to interact with the customers. The success of a product now relies heavily on its reachable level to the customers. Nevertheless, Facebook is the biggest platform where millions of followers follow their desirable content. This is indeed a good platform to for the relation of common people. The Mega Lighting Company is quite successful in its business but low levels of interaction with the customers have affected the significant growth of its business (Ulrich and Sarasin 2012).

Media coverage

The displaying of e-commerce and the renovated websites as the communication tactics are two of the most usable medium of shopping. E-commerce is capitalizing the attention of educated customers. Now, more costumers especially the youth generation prefer to shop on the e-commerce websites. This is because of several reasons such as time effectiveness of the way of shopping. It is time saving and hassle free. It does not require any travelling to the shopping malls for doing the shopping. The numbers of costumers falling to different malls are high in weekends only, which is because of their weekly offs from the different kinds of companies. However, online ode of shopping does offer a hassle free service even on the weekdays. It does not require being physically present at some shopping malls. It just requires a internet connection and the website link to visit. It is also because of the fact that the e-commerce websites do offers a wide range of products on the same website. The benefits are limitless as it also offers the chance to compare the desirable products at the different shopping platforms. It is thus useful in making cost-effective decisions, which is very needful for the savings of money (Gregory 2015). 

The entire campaign goals and objectives would take minimum 3 years for the commencement of all the scheduled communication tactics and the relevant deadlines (Gregory and Willis 2013).

The evaluation approach for the campaign would be done with the help of SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis is highly effective in analyzing the ongoing activities, which are internally oriented. However, it would require certain data on the different renovation and inclusion of platforms. The footfalls of customers would be checked on a regular basis for having a clear idea about the approachability of the included methods and platforms. The required data would be easily collected from the mentioned communication tactics as well. This is because of the fact that majority of the included platforms can be logged in to check the viewing numbers per day such as on the YouTube, facebook and the other social platforms. In addition to this, different kinds of magazines and the reports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics are also useful for evaluating the performance of PR campaign (Theaker and Yaxley 2012).

The high-end research would be conducted on the initiated platforms at regular intervals of time to check the success of the targeted goals and objectives. The research is normally done to check if there is any problem in the public relation campaign. This can be done from several resources such as Australian Bureau of Statistics. This would help in measuring the success and probable problem of the campaign. The set objectives with varied kinds of resources such as Facebook, YouTube, Home Magazine, TV shows and footfalls on the newly invented e-commerce websites require a regular check up to understand their approachability (Reddi 2014). This is necessary because the regular check up would educate on the proceedings. This would help in generating a further strategy to nullify all the odds, which so far had created the problem. It is also a good way to have a controlled execution of the several newly incepted concepts. The research would be done based on the collected data from several included platforms such as YouTube, Facebook page and e-commerce websites (Howard 2016).

Conclusion

Public relations are very important for several reasons such as approachability level of the concerned product. In the modern era of business, it is imperative for a company that it has valued interactions with its customers. This helps in strengthening the relations even further and attracting some new customers. Mega Lighting would perhaps be best benefitted by the PR communications, as this is one of those tactics, which are widely popular in gthe modern day era of making integrated marketing communications. The scheduled PR would certainly help the company in making a good number of people aware of the brand and its specialities. It would certainly boost up the number of existing customers and perhaps would continue to attract the management towards the conduction of more and more integrated marketing communications. 

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