8 steps to promote your upcoming event (+ which tools to use)
While events provide a focused, time-sensitive pitch angle for media, they come with a lot of moving parts. There isn’t one way to go about promoting events - should you use a media alert, pitch page, press release or a combination of these PR tools?
We’ve consolidated our learnings from past client work & conversations with business owners into a basic outline of what we find works well to secure media coverage & target audience awareness of event-specific announcements.
See the steps we take to promote a client’s event below:
8 steps to promote your upcoming event (+ which tools to use):
Develop a media list of local media contacts who will be able to attend the event or whose beat & target audience is geographically relevant. National contacts who cover your industry may not be a fit if their audience doesn’t live locally to where your event will be taking place.
Draft a media alert & get it out to your media list ASAP. Even if they can’t commit to covering or attending the event, this ensures that they have it on their planning calendar for future consideration. You can (& should) follow up with them again later.
Add your event to free online event calendars. Many local news outlets provide event listings for their audiences, and you can submit your event free-of-charge. Look at the outlets you have on your local media list first & then conduct a general search of “[your location] + events” on Google.
Only pay to distribute a press release if your event coincides with a large-scale announcement (i.e. store grand opening, company merger or product launch). The purpose of a press release is to secure widespread coverage & should focus on news that will impact your entire industry. There is also no guarantee that your local media outlets will pick up the story from a press release distributed over the wire.
Engage event partners in your outreach. Share your media alert & any promotional assets with partners to distribute to their contacts, or, alternatively, include their media lists in your outreach. Any event coverage you secure is beneficial to brand partners too, so empower them by providing them with the tools to support you in media outreach.
Hold off on developing a pitch page for the event (that’s what the media alert is for). BUT do follow up with anyone who has received a pitch page from you in the past & make them aware of your event. Time-sensitive event news is great pitching fodder for media follow-ups, and an event provides a tangible example of how the message of your earlier pitch comes to life.
Day-of event: resend the media alert & make phone calls early in the morning. Many news outlets (especially broadcast) decide what stories they’ll be covering on a daily basis, so this keeps your event top-of-mind for coverage that day.
Post-event: distribute photos & horizontal video footage from the event (along with the original media alert) to your media list. Sometimes media cannot attend an event in-person but may be able to include post-event coverage if provided with the correct assets.
Event media outreach can feel overwhelming, but the keys to remember are: prioritize the media alert, get your event on media calendars ASAP, engage brand partners in outreach, use the event as a reason to follow up with media you’re already having conversations with & don’t give up on coverage just because your event has ended (pursue post-event features by sharing event photos & b-roll).
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