Reviving In-Store Business: A Strategic PR Essay.

Problem and Opportunity Statement

1. Describe the situation that gives rise to the problem or the opportunity. Factors you might consider include competitive pressures on the business, issues about awareness?

2. What the client wants client brief for pitch?

3. Expand on the work you have done earlier into a full plan for your client one they could take and use straight away if they chose to do so?

In-store shopping plays a major role in the communities of Australia. The business has tremendous impact on the local communities and encourages the consumers to gain the advantage from these retail operators. But this has been found that the local communities neglect the in-store shopping and focus more on the online shopping. Thus there has been an urgent need of reviving the in-store business that offers the local community an identity and convenience to the consumers. In this assignment a strategic PR plan as has been initiated for the small business organisation to aware the consumers about the importance of in-store business.

The small shops and business play important role in meeting the needs of the community.  A survey of the consumers of Australia reveals that the small business offers an identity to the community.  58 % of the customers believe that small business offers convenience to the community and forty-five percent of customers believe that small business offers superior services to the customers (Elsworth, 2013).  Thus there is an immediate need of promoting the small business in the community of the country.

The in-store business has a significant contribution to the customers by offering products and services directly to the customers.  The in-store business has sales advantages. The in-store business gets a scope to have communication with the customers directly. The personal relationship will be built and the business can reach the target audience offering direct messages.

In store, business is considered an effective way in order to build long-run relationships with the customers.  This grows a flexible business and low-cost business as well. In the online business, the customers get comparatively fewer opportunities to examine the products and procure the products on their choice.

There are some disadvantages in the in-store business. It is told that due to the direct communication with the customers the owner of the small business spends more time in the interaction. The second important thing is that the small business cannot get new customers as it focuses on the specific number of the customers (Queensland Government, 2016). Thus there is need of developing PR tools to gain the market in the community

Client brief for pitch

Public Relations tools and activities are used to promote a strong positive attitude and behaviour among the consumers for the business. These methods are used to help the willing consumers to become customers of the business (Business Source Premier, 2013). The tools used for the Public Relations are cost effective and these have control in a greater degree. These PR tools build the reputation of the business.

The business organisation sets appropriate goals to build the reputation of the organisation by understanding the target market.  The understanding helps the business to choose correct PR tools for the desired job. For the successful PR tools, the following steps are taken care.

The business organisation requires deciding the type of reputation that it wants to set for the respective organisation. The organisation should decide its business area and its characteristics that will draw to most of the new customers (Daugherty, 2009).  The organisation also needs to spread the newsworthy of its business and should set the big ideas that the customers will talk about this.

Specific

The business should be very clear in stating the area that it wants to achieve.

Measurable

 The business requires setting the tangible measures so that it can measure the result of its business.

Achievable

The business needs to set its objectives that can be dealt within its capacity and budget.

Relevant

The business should set its objectives so that it will improve the specific aspects of the business.

Time-bound

The business needs to set its objectives that will be achievable within the period of time it wants to achieve.

The business needs to formulates statements that clearly answer the different questions like who, what, where and why of the respective business.  The statements developed by the business will be used as the part of the PR material in order to showcase it to the business (Branson, 2013). The factual statements will be the key messages and they are written in small sentences. The business will have five or six sentences as its key messages.

 The business needs to invest funds for PR. The PR agency can also be appointed to manage the PR activity of the business. The business needs to make the budget for different kind of things like direct mail of the media kits, on the items of the promotion, events, on sponsorship and on the brochures (Forbes, 2013). The business needs to set a budget for the annual investment in Public Relations.

The market segment is very important for the marketing plan.  The business will make an assessment on the information of the customers, how the customers live and where the customers will get the information (Kazokiene, 2011). The information will help the business to identify the required best PR tools and tactics for the business.

Spreading the success stories among the customers is also a method to gain business opportunities. It is necessary to identify the material that will assist to build the profile of the business.  The entire business team should consider it as a practice and work to spread interesting stories.  The PR materials are required to be used for the target audience and the effective PR tools will be helpful to this.

The successful stories may be like the story of the business anniversary or achievement to be ventilated in the community through the newspaper. The community group like Rotary and Lions can be involved in the process (Lewis, 2007). The business can make a media release about the successful business growth featuring some photographs, images in the newsletter.  The customers and the business process can also be shown in the case study with good pictures.

The PR tools and the media tools will be helpful for the specific segment of the customers. The business requires matching the media with the market.  IT is important to consider the list of PR tools & the activities and the appropriate media channels are required to be chosen in order to reach the customers.

The records of distribution sources will be built matching the target market. This will be done after making research on the community groups, websites, and the media sources of local or regional (Bakhuya, 2015). The business needs to develop media sources to reach the customers so that the business organisation will make a choice to mix the tools. The social media sites like Facebook twitter etc can be used by the business to spread the success story. In the website of the business organisation the success story can be written.

The success of the PR activities is required to be measured. This will help to identify the tools and tactics that are beneficial. The business will avoid the activities that are not useful and do not have productive results.

While measuring and enhancing the PR activities it is important for the business to study the target customers and the segment of the costumes.  The achievements of the business are to be identified in the PR activities of the business organisation (slideshare.net, 2014).  The assessment also needs to verify the key messages of the organisation.

Appropriate PR tools for the business

The target audience needs to be focused.  This will help the business organisation to direct its PR efforts. Due to the PR activities, the business will make required changes in the awareness, attitudes & behaviours. In this measurement process, the quality media coverage is assessed. It evaluates the number of times the key messages reach to the customers. This also evaluates the contact of the customers and their frequency after they receive the newsletter (Macnamara, 2011). The email, website accesses are also assessed. The growth of the business is identified after the evaluation of the business in social media, referrals from the word of mouth, awareness, and people inquiring about the business of the organisation. The increase in the sales of the business determines the growth of the business.

The survey will be made to measure PR.  In the survey questions will be asked to the customers about the information they get about the business (balance.com, 2016).  The survey will focus on identifying the awareness, attitude, and behaviour of the customers towards the key messages of the business organisation.

 The measurement of the PR focuses on getting both qualitative and quantitative outcomes. In this process, the evaluation will design a series of questions. This will identify whether the business reaches to the target audiences and which key message has reached to the target audience (Crewe, 2000).  Tools and activities of the PR are appropriate or not and whether they are successful. This will also discuss the materials taken by the media channel. The business will also measure what tangible responses it is getting from the customers. This will help the business to identify the appropriate idea about the effective PR activities.

 The tools, activities & the materials used for building the reputation of the business is needed to be evaluated (study.com, 2015). In this process, there is need of identifying whether the activities have positive traits. If the activities have positive traits and do not reach the customers then the business needs to continue to work till the activities reach to the customers.

There is always need of reviewing the market research. The gathered information about the segment of the customers assists the business to target the audiences in a better way. The objectives that are identified in the market plan of the business will be suitable to PR tools & approaches.

Good PR is always effective for the business. It is a continuous creative process.  The business organisation requires remaining positive on its approaches so that it will gain positive responses from the customers and the business will get maximum benefits in the future (womeninpr.com, 2012).

Taking decisions on the appropriate PR goals

Conclusion

Thus there is need of focusing on some strategies to grow the small business and popularize it. The small business requires focusing on encouraging the customers to interact with the owner of the business. Rapport building helps the owner of the business to retain the customers for the long run.  The growing relationship helps the business to understand the needs of the customers shop that it can match the products as per the needs (pria.com, 2014).  The knowledge about the product of the business becomes very helpful for the small business to gain more confidence in the business.  This will help the small business owner to meet the needs of the customers.

The customers’ database can help the small business to build a relationship and track the networks. The database of the customers will provide a valuable source of information. This will help the in-store business to identify the needs of the customers. The in-store business also requires developing its business environment. It requires to display the products list or new arrivals so that the customers get attracted to it. The most important work for the small business owner is to polish the sales skills. The skills such as conversation skills, listening skills, and communication skills are required to be developed. This will help to build lasting relationships with the customers and grow a business that is quite rewarding.

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