Ep 143 - PR and Marketing for events and tradeshows. Expert advice so you're better prepared.

In the dynamic world of events and tradeshows, PR and Marketing stand as the twin pillars of success. Do you know how to make sure your next tradeshow or expo is a hit with your customers and visitors? Are you prepared to showcase your business? Listen up to today's podcast to learn the key steps you can take right now to be better prepared for your next expo or tradeshow.  Ronjini has led several successful PR & Marketing campaigns for a variety of tradeshows.   Learn the same information used by the PR Experts.  

Events and tradeshows stand as unparalleled platforms for brands to showcase their prowess, engage directly with their target audience, and foster invaluable industry connections. Leveraging these events effectively requires a blend of strategic storytelling, eye-catching visuals, and real-time engagement tactics. When executed with precision, they not only amplify brand visibility but also cultivate lasting impressions that drive business growth.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for the next episode and share with your friends.   If you need expert assistance, please reach out to Ronjini on our website.  We'll make sure your next PR campaign is successful!  

Transcript

Ronjini Joshua: and marketing for events and trade shows. Hello and Welcome to episode 143. Today we're going to talk about how to maximize PR and marketing at your next event. I know we all go into trade, share season, kind of busy and excited, ready to meet people. But what you have to do is make sure that you're prepared to meet the right people. And that not only goes in marketing, of course, when you're talking about new business and business development, but also the media. And that's one thing that we come across quite often when small businesses startups, even medium size, businesses are going and exhibiting at trade shows. They're really focused on business development, and forget the whole media component of how to maximize your event a trade show. Can be.

Ronjini Joshua: A make or break media event. That should be a place where you guys are optimizing. Every resource, you have to get in front of the media. That's there. And if you don't know, that most trade shows or events have a pre-registered media list.

Ronjini Joshua: Media usually gets into these events for free and gets to register in advance for free and those registrants are given to exhibitors of the show. So if you're exhibiting at a coming show, get that list. It's usually available about three to four weeks in advance. And some cases, maybe less like Techcrunch disrupt. They notified us two weeks in advance that the media list was available for CES. It's usually the first week of December, The Medialist is available for other trade shows. It's about a month in advance of when the trade show is happening and you want to get those and create an email marketing plan for media, specifically around what you're going to talk about at the show. That means creating some key messaging for the show itself, you don't want to just show up and do word vomit on your company you want to have a directive. It's almost like having a press release. You want to talk about something specific and industry challenge. How you solve it and then

Ronjini Joshua: Have a call to action for each of these media and then if you have a more visual component like a video or a product or hardware then show them that and even if you have software you can do a soft demo. So, I really want to talk about how you can maximize these events. first, If you're an exhibitor, get that pre-registered press list. I just told you two weeks to a month in advance. You can actually contact your salesperson, they might put you in touch with the PR team or contact, Or you can go through the exhibitor portal, if there's an exhibitor portal, and they usually have the media list. So make sure you have that.

Ronjini Joshua: Second thing is plan, an announcement around your event. The easiest way to get media to come to, your booth is to have an announcement. So whether it's at the show or you're gonna have an announcement, the week after sometimes, that's good. If you're a smaller brand and you don't want to compete with those big brands that are announcing things at the show, you can post announce, but you can preview your announcement at the actual trade show, so that you can talk to these people in person and create relationships with them. plan announcement around the show. If it's a product, I would actually do the announcement the week before the show, and then come and have them demo or see it live at the show. And then typically, a lot of people ask, do people want to do a phone call? if you're at a show, not a lot of people want to do a phone call, but you might want to reserve some time set aside, for those who can't make it to the show who might want to cover your product or your announcement. So sometimes we do get a request for phone calls, you might

Ronjini Joshua: To do those early in the morning or the evening before the announcement, just to get those off your plate. You will have to dedicate some time and I usually create some kind of schedule for the show so that I can see where I can fill in the blanks of media. you want to make sure that you're gonna pitch early, but I'm gonna keep on going to Tip number three, set up media interviews in advance. So for a big show like CES, you're gonna have to reach out to them one to two months in advance. Outlets like Techcrunch Cnet Engadget Gizmodo those guys are booking. Their TV slots probably two to three months in advance and their interviews about one month in advance. And if you somebody or you have a relationship, just go ahead and reach out to them and say, Hey are you attending the show? I like to book a meeting with you at the show, so I can show you this coming thing. Otherwise if you don't know these people

Ronjini Joshua: You don't have a relationship but you're working with the press list. Go ahead and start reaching out four weeks in advance. Have a schedule open and say, Hey, look, we're booking for this and this day when the executives are available, make sure your spokespeople are available during that meeting time and schedule these in advance. You don't want to wait to last minute the week before. Pitching is not going to work. However, if you do, have a press release and you haven't made time to pitch, you can

Ronjini Joshua: Send it out under, hopeful embargo as long as it's not too, high brow of a press release and you could say, Hey please stop by our booth next week, we are at Booth 250 in Hull, A or whatever, wherever you're located and get them to stop by your booth. And they may not confirm over email, but they might actually write it down to stop by your booth. That's another thing. You really need to make sure that you have somebody at the booth that understands that you're gonna have different types of people stopping by. But again, we're gonna talk about that in a future tip coming up here. The next tip is make sure you create unified messaging for your boost staff and spokespeople and make sure you review it either the morning of the first day or the day before the actual show happens. You want them to be able to have Takeaways one, Who is your company? What message do you want to relay to, what news do you have at the show or around the show?

Ronjini Joshua: Three, What is it called action, not only for the media, but for the Target audiences and then for Have a media kit ready, make sure you have media kit. everybody knows where the Media Kid is. We've been doing this thing where we have business size cards, with the QR code, to the media kit, and that's been really effective. So you might want to do that. Next watch for media badges at your show. This is kind of a creepy thing and people have been doing it for decades so don't worry. The media is used to it. The media badge is usually a different color. I repeat.

Ronjini Joshua: The badge is a different color, folks, so you can easily sometimes not so easily. But most of the time, pretty easily identify who is media and who is not Media. Badge is a totally different color and it says, Media on it. So, once you've identified, that try to do that on the first morning the first day, or even when you're registering for the show, try to, peep out what the media badge color is and keep your eyes peeled. For when media is walking by lure them into your booth and give them your pitch, you never know when they're gonna be the right person. so just make sure you keep an eye out for that one. Caveat to this is that sometimes the media register as exhibitor. So larger media, like first ABC Fox scene at Techcrunch, those kind of big, big guys, sometimes our exhibitors also, so sometimes they have an exhibit or bad. So

Ronjini Joshua: You never know. And then also, of course, if you see a camera reel them in, if just ask them who they are and pull them in, I mean, your job at being your booth is to pull people in and brief them on what you're doing there, what the call to action is anyway, so you might as well do that. the next tip scout for podcasts and broadcasters at the event now, Basically keep an eye out for those media and what I said, pull them in. If you see somebody with a camera, if you see somebody with a mic and then, if you see their badge and kind of can identify who they are, just pull them into your booth.

Ronjini Joshua: there is always a press room especially at the bigger ones. The smaller shows leather more like conferences or industry conferences and events. Maybe not but bigger shows always have a press room. Go check out the press room. Sometimes there's places to leave your collateral so you can leave your marketing or press collateral there. You can leave those QR code cards there, or you can even meet press there. So, when we get really desperate as people will go and hang out in front of the booth and look for people at Specific outlets and we'll go to the press room. Another little pro hack is if you do have a podcast or something like that or you guys have a blog writer,

Ronjini Joshua: Register them as press and they can actually go into the press room. don't go in there and ruin it for everybody and bother the press. That's not what I'm just saying there are ways to get access to the press when it makes sense. make sure you have your ducks in a row before you do this particular pro tip. The next thing is make sure every day, every evening, you're following up at the media to stop by the booth with the press kit, some kind of intelligent commentary and make sure that they know that you're available for anything else. They might need any questions about your questions about any questions and commentary that you might need from your executive? So make sure that

Ronjini Joshua: you follow up that same day and if not, by the end of the week, but follow-up is so crucial and I cannot say that enough in any of my podcasts. follow-up. next Tip. ing coverage monitoring can happen from same day to the next week to the next month. So some of these shows can produce fruitful content for a full quarter if you do it, But you do have to make sure you're following up. If you found that someone was really, really interesting didn't post anything. first of all, you have to make sure that you're writing these people down or scanning their badges making sure.

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Ronjini Joshua: That you're tracking all the media, that's stopping by, but if you found that someone hasn't written something, there could be a reason or they might have missed some piece of content or maybe they didn't get the media kit. Follow up with them a few weeks later and just see if you can get some media coverage or if they're working on a story, let them know that, you're here as a resource if they need you.

Ronjini Joshua: so these are, some pro tips that get you moving on any events and trade shows that are coming out or that you're planning on going to. The other thing is make sure that you have a booth schedule. I did not mention as this tip. This is kind of like a bonus tip, make sure you have a boost schedule and then there's always staff in the booth and that there's always someone who can speak to those key messaging points so that you guys don't look silly because media pop up whenever they want. It's sometimes not predictable. You can always ask them to come back but it's not likely at a bigger show that they'll come back at a smaller show. They might return and it might be good to have a printed schedule available so that you can fill it in. It could be good to have your spokesperson's card on hand so that you can give it to the media and always ask the media for a card. And if not take a picture of their badge, please monitor the media.

Ronjini Joshua: Coming in, take a picture, write it down. Scan their badge, Whatever you need to do to keep track. This is very, very hot collateral. So make sure that you're doing these key steps and I promise you, your next trade show is going to be awesome. You can actually follow these same kinds of tips for business development, except obviously with the caveat. These are business development or potential potential. Partners. So yeah. All right, good luck, guys, email me. If you have any questions, if you're having trouble getting immediate list, if you need any support around, you need the silver Telegram.com and I will talk to you next time.