Event Marketing: Three Ways to Get More PR Mileage

There’s a lot that goes into successful event marketing.

It can be easy to get so wrapped up in the details of a successful event, you miss the ancillary PR benefits.

Inviting journalists and providing exclusive executive access is the very beginning gaining PR potential from an event marketing plan.

Here are three often-overlooked ways to extend the PR shelf-life in your next event marketing plan.

Invite Micro-influencers

Your executive team may be focused on getting top-tier journalists to attend your event, but chances are they won’t.

They’re typically there to gain access to your customers, or to do some background information gathering on your company.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invite them.

But you will need to set expectations regarding possible outcomes of their attendance.

Micro-influencers, on the other hand, provide a significant opportunity for sharing your story and spreading the word about your event.

They’re significantly more likely to share their behind-the-scenes access.

And the content they create will be shared with an engaged audience who trusts their opinion.

Find out who your customers look to for advice and insights before they purchased from your company.

These are the influencers to include in your event marketing plan and provide special VIP networking opportunities.

Plan Instagrammable Moments

If you’ve been to Disneyland, you’re familiar with the Kodak moment signs around the park that alert guests to the perfect photo opportunity.

Today, conferences such as Dreamforce and Social Media Marketing Worldhave this down to a science.

Combine a ubiquitous hashtag with some backdrops, props, or a mascot, and you’re guaranteed user-generated content.

If it’s especially clever or engages your biggest-name attendees, it may even garner a round-up article in a key industry publication.

At a minimum, attendees are likely to ham it up in the photo booth and post the photos to social.

They may even put them up on their desk back at the office, where they can become a conversation starter.

Co-create Customer Content

How often do you have a big group of your customers under one roof for a few days?

So why not make the most of it through pre-scheduling customer interviews?

Hire a video crew and set aside a conference room or suite for 30-minute video interviews.

Gather customer insights on the needs your product or services solve and how their day-to-day life has improved because of it.

You can also tap your collective customer brain trust to weigh in on key industry discussions, and create your own collective think piece.

Not only does this type of content become a valuable thought leadership asset for your brand, it helps make put your customers center-stage.

It helps them add to their industry influence and standing.

If you lack the resources for professional video content creation, there are still plenty of ways to get extra mileage out of participation:

• Curate the best social media content during the event and turn into a video or a SlideShare
• Design customer quote cards and share on social with the event hashtag
• Conduct live social polls at the event
• Livestream your keynote or parts of your event and tag your customers and their companies

The PR Afterglow of Event Marketing

Live events can be a unique opportunity to combine relationship-building with long-lasting public relations afterglow.

To make this possibility a reality, make sure the PR team plays a part in more than just the on-site shepherding of journalists.

You’ll be glad you did.

Originally published on Spin Sucks.

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