All of us at Frause were so excited about starting a blog; we spent hours fighting over who would be responsible for the content. We drew straws, played rock paper scissors, even thumb wrestled for the honor. It turns out our interns have some strong thumbs (not to mention opinions). They also have the best opportunity to provide a “fly on the wall” look into the workings of Frause. Without further ado, we present Frause – through the eyes of our interns!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The old school nuts and bolts of PR



Each day at Frause is different, and my workload often fluctuates, but often the assignments come in piles.

Take for example one recent Tuesday afternoon. A mailing consisting of 713-pieces had to be organized, stuffed, stamped, and fixed with mailing labels— all by 5 p.m. The previous day was spent wrestling with computer glitches and technical problems in an attempt to prepare and print the labels. In the process I learned all about Microsoft Word’s “mail merge” function, which I’ve realized is an extremely useful and time-saving tool.

By Tuesday, I knew my afternoon at Frause was going to be jam-packed and a little hectic. The calendar was blocked off, and those of us who were available dedicated time to getting the materials prepped for the mail. Hurrying through the stacks of envelopes, it seemed like we were making good time, until we passed 4 p.m. and the question hovered, “Would we be able to finish in time?”

Well, that last hour was madness, but sure enough, we were able to complete the piles and even caught a stack of materials that were missing their stamps. Taking the boxes down to the lobby at just about 5 p.m. on the dot, we found ourselves in fact well ahead of the postman’s pickup.

While stuffing and stamping envelopes isn’t exactly cutting-edge PR work, it comes with a nice reward at the end: The satisfaction of dropping giant stacks of mail into the post office drop box and knowing our selected target audiences will soon be learning about our clients!

-Emily Levine