The Value of PR in Maximising Event Visibility

Indus­try events are more than just oppor­tu­ni­ties to net­work, they’re pow­er­ful tools to build brand author­i­ty, dri­ve media cov­er­age and ampli­fy your company’s voice.

For B2B busi­ness­es, who typ­i­cal­ly have long buy­ing cycles, trust is crit­i­cal, and events are a cru­cial chance to estab­lish rela­tion­ships and posi­tion your brand as a leader. 

Whether your com­pa­ny is host­ing its own event, exhibit­ing at a key con­fer­ence or has a spokesper­son speak­ing on a pan­el, events pro­vide plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to ampli­fy your mes­sage, and you should be look­ing to make the most of them.  

Why PR mat­ters at events 

 Event PR should be strate­gic, and be part of a wider plan, oth­er­wise it will get lost amongst the noise. Here’s how PR can bring tan­gi­ble val­ue to your busi­ness:  

Ampli­fies media pres­ence 

Get­ting the right jour­nal­ist and media out­lets to engage with your brand dur­ing an event is a great way to increase cred­i­bil­i­ty.

Most notable events will have a media pres­ence, so hav­ing a plan for out­reach is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with jour­nal­ists that will already be in atten­dance – it is a hotspot of indus­try lead­ers, and you should pri­ori­tise meet­ing jour­nal­ists the same way you pri­ori­tise net­work­ing with oth­er indus­try peers.  

Max­imise your key spokes­peo­ple being in dif­fer­ent places too. If you have time, reach out to local jour­nal­ists, and see if they want to speak to you while you are in the area. Remem­ber – they don’t have to be attend­ing the event.  

There are sev­er­al PR tools that can be utilised at events, media brief­in­gs, press releas­es and tran­scripts of your spokesperson’s talk, so con­sid­er every­thing to make the most of your time there.  

Deliv­ers strate­gic, on-brand con­tent 

Events are a con­tent gold­mine: keynote sound­bites, prod­uct announce­ments, cus­tomer tes­ti­mo­ni­als, thought lead­er­ship insights – the list goes on. Work­ing with a PR team helps you to cap­ture, shape and share in a way that rein­forces your mes­sag­ing.  

From live social updates to post-event blogs and expert com­men­tary in key trade titles, strong PR turns your event into a con­tent engine that can pro­vide repur­posed con­tent long after the event has fin­ished.  

If you are host­ing your own event or exhibit­ing at a key indus­try con­fer­ence, hav­ing a ded­i­cat­ed PR expert means your team can focus on the task at hand, safe in the knowl­edge that key moments are being cap­tured. 

Whether the objec­tive is to repo­si­tion the busi­ness, ele­vate a key exec­u­tive, or build thought lead­er­ship in a niche mar­ket, PR pro­vides the struc­ture to make sure that all your efforts are work­ing towards those goals. 

Case Study: Elevating Visibility at ThreatLocker’s Zero Trust World conference 

Every year, The Jar­gon Group client Threat­Lock­er host their Zero Trust World con­fer­ence.

The event, which takes place in Orlan­do where they are head­quar­tered, brings togeth­er lead­ing fig­ures in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty for dis­cus­sions around the lat­est issues in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, as well as pro­vid­ing hands-on work­shops such as their hack­ing labs.  

The con­fer­ence is a trea­sure trove of key insight and pro­vid­ed count­less oppor­tu­ni­ties to engage with the media. We reached out to key jour­nal­ists in the ter­ri­to­ries we cov­er to invite them to the con­fer­ence, for a chance to see first-hand the incred­i­ble work Threat­Lock­er is doing.  

10 jour­nal­ists attend­ed from the UK and Ire­land, along with 15 from the US. We set up a media room where jour­nal­ists were giv­en a ded­i­cat­ed qui­et space to inter­view key Threat­Lock­er spokes­peo­ple and worked with ThreatLocker’s mar­ket­ing team to co-ordi­nate inter­views with their key spokes­peo­ple through­out.  

The event result­ed in 39 pieces of cov­er­age, com­pris­ing of news of their lat­est prod­uct launch, inter­views and pod­cast appear­ances, across a range of nation­al and trade titles like The Irish Inde­pen­dent, GB News, Tech Radar, SC Mag­a­zine, CRN and oth­ers.  

The scale of the con­fer­ence was huge, and hav­ing such a large media pres­ence meant that the key mes­sages were ampli­fied beyond those in atten­dance across a range of media that mat­tered.  

For more infor­ma­tion on the event, read this case study. 

Mak­ing the Most of Every Event Oppor­tu­ni­ty 

Events demand sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment – time, mon­ey and resources. PR ensures you get the max­i­mum return on your invest­ment by extend­ing your reach, build­ing your rep­u­ta­tion and cap­tur­ing atten­tion beyond the con­fer­ence hall.  

Whether you’re plan­ning your next flag­ship event or gear­ing up for a major trade show appear­ance, inte­grat­ing PR from the start can be the dif­fer­ence between attend­ing and own­ing the event.