Emma Julian is Director of Business Development at Bonner and Hindley and has written the next blog in our ‘How To Exhibit’ series which are written by industry experts to help our exhibitors get the most from our upcoming flagship event, Conference & Hospitality Show on Tuesday 24th April 2018 in Leeds:
BLOG 6 IN OUR ‘HOW TO EXHIBIT’ SERIES
Top 5 tips for a successful PR campaign
When it comes to exhibiting at CHS, you will have everything sorted operationally by now, but PR is likely to be last on your list or potentially hasn’t been thought about yet….. You will be wanting to make sure you get your return on your investment and some press coverage can make the difference to attracting new customers or converting that dream client.
Here are my FIVE tops tips for trying to secure as much PR coverage as possible on and beyond the day of the show;
Remember that journalists are very busy people with tight deadlines and little time to research your products. Make their life easy by providing well written, informative stories – supported by good quality images if possible – and you’ll stand more of a chance of getting your news items published.
Try to see and write your story from the reader’s perspective; ensure that the most important information is right at the beginning and don’t get bogged down with details that may seem important to you or your business but isn’t really going to be of interest to the reader. Finally, don’t let your internal politics or procedures get in the way of telling a good story.
- Make sure you prepare for the show well in advance, gathering stories and images together about new developments, refurbishments, investments, staff news, major business wins, awards/accolades. Make sure all your staff are briefed on these stories and are confident about sharing them with press and visitors to your stand.
- Think about what everybody else is likely to be presenting in terms of news releases and see whether you can come up with something different, or whether you could take a different angle/approach that will mark you out from the crowd. Try to include a quote from a senior manager and/or a client and always provide relevant facts and figures to support the story. And remember, that a good quality image to go alongside your story can sometimes give you the edge in securing coverage.
- Send a press release to key journalists in advance of CHS and try to pre-organise meetings to take place whilst you’re at the event, so that you can chat through your story ideas in more detail, whilst also developing your relationships with the media.
- In addition to preparing a ‘traditional’ press release, remember to also create appropriate posts to be used across your social media channels (great pics will really help here as well). Use scheduling tools to ensure that your posts will go out and be visible during the show. That way, you won’t need to worry about it on the day and you can always post some ‘top-up’ content if you have time.
- Do your homework. Read the titles that will be supporting the show and look at their forward features lists so that you can speak knowledgably with their representatives about the articles and features that they publish – this will help you to pitch your story for the relevant section/feature within their publication or website.
More about Emma;
Emma Julian is Director of Business Development at Bonner and Hindley, a marketing and PR company based in Leeds who specialise on Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism, and have been market leaders in the sector for over 20 years. They have a wide range of clients including Yorkshire Attractions, Great Inns of Britain, Raithwaite Estate and many more including CHS. Emma’s background covers senior sales roles in hotels, bars and restaurants and she has been a regular at CHS since the show began. In fact she will be at the show on behalf of another client – the Leeds Hotels and Venues Association stand (J22) on the day, so feel free to go and see her.