Promoting your brand at conferences and events

As a PR, attending events and industry conferences is an essential part of the job. In recent weeks, myself and my colleagues have attended Employee Benefits Live, Call Centre Expo, supply chain breakfast briefings and a client seminar on the theme of cloud computing, among others. But what relevance do events have to your wider PR and marketing campaign, and how can you get the most out of them?

From a marketing point of view, these events can be tricky. Journalists seldom have the time to attend briefings, and when they’re at industry conferences and trade shows, are often fiendishly busy. Hanging out by the press room in the hope of grabbing a journalist to meet you and find out about your latest widget or service is no longer a guarantee of successful coverage from an event.

So what can you do? Well, using your attendance at a recognised event can be a great way of securing interest in follow-up briefings at a later date from relevant journalists. If you’re speaking, issuing a ‘speech release’ with your main points, embargoed prior to the event, can be used to leverage interest. Man has idea on way to work – that’s not news. Man stands up on stage and tells conference about said idea – that can be news!

Or you could look at a more general release highlighting topics or issues the company is at the show or conference to promote. With smaller breakfast briefings, consider inviting a single journalist, with the promise of exclusivity, works well to overcome the time needed and the early start journalists are so quick to grumble about.

Finally, think about social media – can you yourself play the role of a reporter, giving updates from the event via social media channels? Or consider the ‘stealth survey’ or mystery shopping techniques... drop us a line if you want to find out more about these approaches to marketing your brand at events.