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Creating Successful Event PR
- 1. Creating Successful Event PRByAshley Wirthlin
- 2. The Importance of PR Public Relations is the manager of a company’s brand. Without it, the company is left to waste dollars on advertising and marketing costs, which are less effective in the long (and sometimes short) run. A lot of companies still see advertising or marketing as their first step, when it should be PR. PR can also help build a brand, whereas advertising is good for maintaining a brand and image, and can help to instill trust in your customers and buyers..
- 3. Why Event PR is Important Events are an important part of a company’s interaction with a community, and it can often times be a source of revenue/income (especially for a non-profit) or a great awareness-raising campaign. As such, generating and maintaining PR around (before, during, and after) an event is crucial to its success. Why? PR is less expensive. PR is more credible.
- 4. How Does one Generate Event PR? Plan for the event. Evaluate the event’s newsworthiness. Plan the event. Continuously release information.
- 5. Generating PR, Continued The “drip-drip-drip publicity technique” means you need to release information on a semi-regular basis. As Gehrt and Moffitt explain in their text, Strategic Public Relations, you must release information in a steady manner so as to maintain interest and build anticipation. Larry Litwin also mentions this in his text, the Public Relations Practitioner’s Playbook, where the drip-drip-drip term comes from.
- 6. Methods of Generating PR for Your Event There are many methods and tools available when looking to generate PR, but here are a few: Social Media Press Releases Interviews Media Pitches/Coverage Blogs & Websites Guest Articles, Publication Contributions eBooks, White Pages, Webinars, Podcasts, Webcasts, etc.
- 7. Measure Your Results After an event has passed, it’s important to look at your PR efforts and the results you experienced. Measuring your results is the only way you can evaluate and determine changes needed to be made for next time and successes that were seen this time.
Editor's Notes
- As opposed to advertising, PR is not a tout of one’s own horn, but rather the use of others to share your strengths, benefits, and offerings
- Those TV campaigns are going to be expensive. But, you can get something similar through PR efforts. When working for a non-profit during my undergraduate program, I was able to see just how hard it is to get PR, but their efforts truly paid off. They were able to get a spot from Comcast, which was broadcast to millions of viewers, and were even able to get the support of Comcast through a donation to be a sponsor. This sort of collaboration (or a small give and take) is what helps companies go far. Not only was comcast helping the small non-profit, they also helped themselves by spending less than an advertising campaign, but getting their name out there on every thing the non-profit published, and on every coverage channel who featured the event. Comcast got free advertising from their small PR investment, and the non-profit got revenue and free advertising. Also following with that example, seeing Comcast sponsor an event like that in a smaller town like Portland Oregon can create large amounts of goodwill from customers and buyers, and it’s so much more effective than using TV ads or Billboards that cry for people’s attention, interrupting what they were doing in the first place: ie., driving, or watching a TV program. Additionally, from the standpoint of the non-profit, their PR efforts surrounding the event were more credible and trustworthy than had they simply run an ad because the coverage was coming from someone else, making the event more of a suggestion and recommendation from the source rather than a demand from the company itself.
- Well, like we went over in the previous slide, it’s pretty similar to getting PR coverage for any campaign or PR plan. You have to pitch the media and work on getting your event featured. To do that, though, you must start at the beginning. PLAN FOR:When promoting a special event, or a not so special event, there are some guidelines to adhere to in order to ensure success. The first is to include your events in your PR plans. If you hope to create a beneficial and effective event, it must be planned and it must tie into the company's overall objectives and goals. (Remember, tactics must be created from your well defined strategies.)The purpose of a special event may differ from company to company, but the purpose of the PR surrounding it is the same: to generate interest and to interact with the public. This means that your PR efforts need to be targeted, clear, and newsworthy. But, if your event is irrelevant, the PR created for the event will also go unnoticed, so be sure your event is relevant and important.NEWSWORTHINESS: You can evaluate your event's newsworthiness and create a more successful event by first planning, and planning well. Be sure to reiterate your strategies (those of the company) in this event plan to ensure the event is in line with the company's goals. Additionally, ensure that this tactic will actually help to achieve the desired goals. If it doesn't, the event will be a waste of time, resources, and PR that could have gone to other company goings-on.PLAN THE EVENT: When planning the event, be sure to cover all of your bases. This means that all of the planning details need to be addressed. Who is the go-to person for problems? Who is staffing the event? Who is in charge of the volunteers? What's your time-frame? Most events seem to encounter problems, and things are done last minute, so create a time-line in the very beginning, and stick to it. Realize deadlines for media, catering needs, decorations, etc., so that you can plan well and still respect their needs as well.When planning an event, be sure to talk with others in the company. As the PR team, your job is to create that awareness and interest, but you have to know the whole story in order to share it with others. Knowing this information, who the event's target audience is, and what the company's goals are can greatly increase your chances of success. More importantly, it helps you to determine which tools to use and which to avoid.After planning an event, the key to it's success is to create and maintain interest up to and following the event. This is referred to as the drip-drip-drip technique of publicity, and is essentially the constant release of relevant information to really generate and stimulate interest from buyers and the public. "The drip-drip-drip technique builds anticipation and demand." (This technique and more information on it can be found in Larry Litwin's text, The Public Relations Practitioners Playbook. You can also check out his blog here.)Having helped with event planning in the past, things can get pretty hectic. Get help where you need it, and be sure to evaluate what went right and what went wrong. This is a vital part of any event, campaign, or plan. You must measure and analyze results to better plan next time, and to be able to report to people who are vested in the success of these events and PR campaigns.
- This is probably one of the most important steps of the PR generation process. While the other steps need to take place before this step, this is what the public sees, so it must be clean, prepared, and organized. Internal activities can be a bit messy, but for the public, things need to appear perfect. Companies are often measured against higher standards than individuals: if they do something wrong, many consumers assume that they “should have known better”. If they do something right, it’s expected.
- This does deserve it’s own video, so I created one for that too.