Posts Tagged ‘events’

Monday, April 21st, 2008

#

Tradeshow season is here – are you ready?

Author: PAN Communications

As many of us know, we are in the midst of tradeshow season. This year has been no exception for me with clients at Web 2.0 this week, Interop next week and Sapphire during the first week of May. With all of the hustle and bustle of tradeshows, product launches and media tours, I wanted to stop and call out a few key points and best practices to make that help to make our client’s tradeshow experience successful. First and foremost – start early – planning is key when you have multiple clients going to multiple events. For Interop next week, three of PAN’s clients BlueCat Networks, CiRBA and Patni are going to be onsite. We took this opportunity to work collaboratively rather than having three different PAN folks contacting the same pre-reg. list. By keeping each other in the loop when speaking with a reporter and by discussing the fact that all three clients were going to be onsite, we minimized outreach efforts and maximized reporter relationships. Additionally, Interop has done a stellar job in keeping PR and marketing efforts organized. The event planners held a conference call for those attending where we learned of specific deadlines, approval processes and where we can get pre-reg lists. Interop keeps all of this information on an exhibitor extranet. The process has been very organized and the planners have been a pleasure to work with. In addition to the media who have registered for the show, the three teams outreached to their beat reporters to see who would be attending, since many reporters decide last minute and never make it to the pre-reg. list. This process has been very helpful because we’ve uncovered some new targets. In addition it has given us good reason to check in with our beat reporters and has led to other discussions and in some cases editorial opportunities. Finally, a newer best practice that we have put into place is reviewing the exhibitor list for publishing companies. More and more, publishers are getting booth space to drive vendors to them, rather than the historical stance of walking the show floor. Of course, their purpose in having a booth presence is to drive ad dollars, but for PR, this is extremely helpful because we’ve let our clients know which publications will be onsite and recommended that they drop by the booth to strike up conversations. With all of the above in place, our clients have booked several meetings leading up to the show and several onsite appointments. We are primed and ready to take our events by storm. Good luck to all of you who are attending events in the coming weeks.
Listen to PANCasts