Most surveys tell us that the majority of editors and writers work largely by email and phone to communicate with their sources. However, we also know from communication research that face-to-face communication still holds a valued place in how we relate to one another. The trade show site is an ideal place to build and maintain a rapport with key editors and reporters that we work with by email and phone for most of the year. Since trade show season ramps in the first quarter in most industries, now is the time to start planning.
The advice that I offer may seem simplistic to veterans, but it is not obvious to those with little or no experience in working with trade and professional journals. Generating publicity surrounding a major trade show has three key benefits:
1. Prior to the show it can create interest in attendees visiting your booth to see the new products.
2. During the show it can introduce major trade publication editors to your company, its products and the industry experts on your staff.
3. Following the show you have additional editorial opportunities to pursue based on the discussions you have had with editors.
Several weeks prior to a trade show there is usually the opportunity to send the show’s publication brief overviews of the new products or services you plan to introduce. This information often is buried in the piles of paper your exhibit manager or marketing director receives in the months prior to the event. If you don’t find information about this editorial opportunity in the exhibitors’ packet, call the show management’s public relations department.
Major trade shows, such as NetComm in the telecommunications/networking industry and the National Management Health Care Congress in health care, are well attended by the industry’s top reporters and trade publication editors. Major shows like these are terrific venues to meet face-to-face with the editors whose publications best reach your customers and prospects. Editors are interested in innovative products and meeting potential sources of industry expertise. While most can give you only 20 – 30 minutes, these few minutes can establish valuable relationships and lay a foundation for future coverage.
My experience in the past is that meetings with editors at trade shows can result in editorial coverage in 90 to 100 percent of these publications, including those that are Web-based. Assuming of course, the company’s spokesperson addresses topics of news value to each publication.
Follow-up to thank editors, reconfirm any commitments made by the company or an editor and to suggest story ideas not discussed during meetings puts a company in a position of laying out nearly a year’s worth of coverage.
