Public Relations and Promotions Assignment

Public Relations and Promotions

Public Relations and Promotions

Public relations is the management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or an organization with the public interest and plans and executes actions to earn public understanding and acceptance. In a marketing situation, this can then attract more customers to the organization. Maintaining good public relations with the clientele of one’s business is often the cornerstone for any successful business strategy. For one to reach out to their potential clients, there has to be a laid down marketing strategy which often includes public relations.

There are several public relation strategies that can be employed within the Family diner restaurant to attract more customers. To begin with, and most importantly is the use of the Media. Televisions, Newspapers and radios can all be used to provide advertisements about the diner. Journalists could be invited over to the restaurant to take photos and even eat the delicacies of the restaurant to enhance the advertisement. Special events can also be advertised in the same media to ensure that potential customers are aware of the offers.

These could include happy days in which whatever one orders can be given in double portions if the customer is able to eat it all. Also, the special homemade pies can be assigned specific days, these days and the given pie can then be tabled and advertised in such media. This will ensure that the customers know the menu and the schedule and can therefore freely come on the days that these have offers. There can also be special days of tasting the different delicacies and eating competitions.

These act to draw more clients and educate more individuals of the restaurant’s presence. The next public relation strategy is the establishment of an online presence within the different internet outlets. As previously discussed in the previous plans, pages will be created in all the social media such as Facebook, twitter, Instagram among several others. This will act to ensure that the customers are able to give their feedback in any way they prefer. Images of what is offered daily at the diner will also be posted on these pages. Updates on any special offers or competitions will also be provided well in advance on these pages to ensure that the clients are well aware of any ongoing offers.

The third public relation strategy is the establishment of a community presence. This will be achieved in several ways which include sponsoring a local youth sports group such as football, baseball or basketball. The diner will take part in the printing of their jerseys, facilitating several matches. Through this, the community will get to know of the restaurant and more individuals will prefer to be associated with the diner. The new logo created for the diner will be included in the shirts of the players to ensure adequate advertisement. During their matches, take away food can be packed and sold in small tents around the playing location or field. This will also act as an attraction to more clients. Another way of ensuring the diner is well known to the community is the distribution of leaflets and flyers about the diner during social gatherings such as parades or local festivals.

The next PR strategy is the use of sales promotions. There are several ways in which sales promotions can be done especially in restaurants. The strategies which will be applied for the Family Diner include the ones discussed below. To begin with, there will be discounts given to the loyal customers or those that spend a large amount of time at the diner. Discounts will also be provided for those that buy in bulk either eating within the restaurant or taking out. There will be specific days when there will be discounts specifically for children. Also, there will be other days when the men will receive discounts especially on the drinks. Ladies can be treated to discounts on the fast foods or home pies that they love on specific days as well. These selected days of specific discounts should then be posted on the websites and the dailies and even on the restaurant’s banner just outside the family Diner.

The next promotion strategy that will be used is the creation of events. This can be incorporated by the local community’s festivals. On such an occasion, the diner shall organize an event, invite live bands, create an awareness and create a program such as a free health camp. This shall be held preferably just outside the diner. For instance, free health services will be provided. This can include the easy to do services and estimates of wellbeing such as weight and height measuring, blood pressure measuring and short sessions of general examination. Other events which can be organized include fashion shows, comedies and even fundraisers for the needy children in the society. All these go a long way to create a memorable event in the entire community thus making the restaurant more likeable and preferred to the rest.

The main challenge facing the first sales promotion strategy, discounts provision is that the restaurant may incur a lot of losses in employing this strategy. It may be noted that the customers merely mark these dates on their calendars and only come to the diner on theses dates and not on the other normal days. This will make the restaurant to incur a lot of expenses with no significant profits and returns. The solution for this would be to randomly select the days when the discounts are provided in such a way that only those present at that very instant and those that can receive the word-of-mouth fast enough receive this form of treat. This can later be divided into specific hours of the day for instance say 4pm to 5pm and 10am to 11 am.

The main challenge facing the creation of events as a sales promotion strategy is that even though the event may be well organized, people may fail to turn up and thus the restaurant may face terrible losses in the process after such an expense and arrangement for the events. The solution to this would be to ensure people get to know of an organized event. This can be done through advertisements in the social media to ensure several people turn up for these and similar events.