How to Promote an Austin Event Through Media Coverage
There are few more effective ways for an Austin-based business to engage its audience than by bringing them together at a local event. What physical gatherings may lack in immediate reach are made up several times over in depth; potential clients, investors, partners, and journalists who can look you in the eye and hear your message in your own voice will recall your offering far more readily than something they saw on a screen.
Yet a successful event neither starts nor ends with the coming and going of the attendees. Word must be spread in advance to ensure that people show up, and journalists must be incentivized to report on the event so that the momentum you generate does not die out when the doors close. What follows is a straightforward guide to achieving precisely this outcome through strategic media relations.
Step 1: Plan the Event
You must know exactly what you are promoting before you reach out to the press. This means establishing a date, time, venue, and a schedule that journalists can plan around, clearly indicating when important moments will take place and defining dedicated slots for interviews or photo opportunities. It also means ensuring that the event itself is interesting and newsworthy enough to justify journalists coming out to report on it. The event should be designed with a headline in mind.
It is also worth hiring a photographer or videographer to capture the event on your behalf. This will allow you to share photos and B-roll with journalists who did not capture their own or who were unable to attend. A good visual can make a story.
Step 2: Map the Local Media
“Local Austin media” usually brings to mind a handful of large, general news outlets like the Austin-American Statesman. These have the broadest reach, and combing through their journalists for ones that show interest in your industry should be your first step.
But such outlets are only the tip of the iceberg. Austin has a long tail of community papers, neighborhood publications, radio shows, niche newsletters, local business journals, event roundups, and culture sites that speak to smaller but highly-engaged audiences. Identifying the ones who speak to your audience will allow you to target the journalists and readers who are most likely to attend.
Step 3: Spread the News
Finally, you can begin pitching the outlets you have selected. The guiding principle throughout this process is that you must never rely on a journalist to do the work for you; reporting on the event should be as effortless and frictionless as possible. The details determined in the first step should now be clearly conveyed, along with offers to interview spokespeople and any materials that will help them prepare for the story.
Your first press release should go out weeks in advance, aimed both at beat reporters and the editors in charge of calendar listings and community roundup sections. This allows both the press and the general public to become aware of the event and work it into their schedules. A more detailed release should be issued closer to the time—though journalists may receive it earlier under embargo—followed by a final release after the event offering information about the turnout and the media you captured.
Conclusion
The success of an event lies in the story it tells. If you expect the right journalists to stumble upon that story or to piece it together themselves, you will find that neither they nor their audience will lend their attention. If you can organize, present, and distribute every detail in such a way that the story writes itself, however, the impact of your event may linger long after the crowd has gone home.
Be sure to check out our other blogs on useful and interesting public relations topics, like the factors that make a newsworthy story.