In the event industry, we think of Public Relations mainly as publicity –we call it PR for short. All too often, event PR efforts amount to acquiring a small local media list and dribbling out the obligatory press releases to announce our event. All the while hoping this minimal effort will generate extreme interest on the part of the media, causing them to write about our events profusely, and thereby drive tons of consumer traffic to our event.
Biggest problem with this approach is that it is essentially ineffective at both engaging all our key publics and driving traffic to our event. So the goal of my post today is to broaden the perspective of public relations to include audiences (publics) beyond the first tier media partners, and communication tactics (relations) beyond the basic press release.
I believe that by strategically expanding your PR efforts, you will also reinforce the sustainability of your annual event. Try using these 5-steps:
- Make a list of all groups you should be talking to (key publics)
- Set some specific goals for each group
- Develop a time-organized plan for communicating and achieving the goals you set for each key audience (relations)
- Gather all the supporting documents and collaterals needed to support your communication outreach
- Now, implement your plan and evaluate results (effective public relations)
In my next post on this topic, we’ll consider how we might strategically expand the typical list of key publics and just what influence we hope to have on them.
About Linda Sparks
