How to Win Media Coverage at a Trade Show
Roughly 4.7 million businesses exhibit their offerings at a trade show each year to meet face-to-face with buyers and investors. In the midst of all those presentations is a relatively small cohort of journalists ready to echo and amplify your offering far beyond the confines of the showroom; all you have to do is cut through the noise.
That is, of course, the challenge. With dozens of exhibitors dividing journalists’ attention at every show, standing out above the rest is hardly as simple as having a notable offering. If you want to win media coverage through your trade show, you must have a proactive media-relations strategy.
What follows is a brief guide to combining press-releases, interviews, and follow-ups into an actionable plan that will extend your trade-show exposure far beyond closing time.
1. Time Your Press Releases
Every trade show presentation should be accompanied by at least one press release. Press releases allow you to prime your audience in advance, spread awareness of the event, and remind interested parties after the fact. And—crucially—they appeal to journalists. Indeed 72% of journalists cite press releases as the single most useful resource that a public relations team can offer them, according to a 2025 survey report by Cision.
There are three ways to optimize your press-release strategy:
First, you can choose to promote your offering through a press release during or just before the show. In this case it’s imperative that you share the release with journalists under embargo at least two weeks—but preferably more than 30 days—in advance. Doing so allows them to consider your presentation ahead of time, decide whether or not to pursue a story on your offering, and make preparations for coverage. The release should give a detailed description of your offering and include high-resolution images or videos.
Second, you may choose to publicly announce the offering that you will present at the trade show in advance. No embargo is necessary if you choose this route, but the press release should again be shared at least two weeks prior to the show. The downside to this approach is that journalists receive less detail ahead of time. It can, however, create more awareness among your public audience.
The final option is to combine both methods. In this case you would send out an early public release hinting at what will be presented, followed by a detailed release at the time of the show. The latter release should still be shared with journalists under embargo at least 30 days in advance so that they can incorporate your talking points into their preparation. This route allows you to pique public interest while granting journalists all the information they’ll need ahead of the trade show.
2. Prime Your Audience
It is worth creating opportunities for broader editorial coverage alongside your advance or embargoed release. Such coverage will likely be vendor-neutral but thematically aligned with your press-release messaging, acting as an additional primer for your audience ahead of the show.
You can combine two separate strategies to accomplish this effectively: article pitches and commitment-free meet-and-greets.
Winning articles and op-eds is a matter of proposing the right angle—that is, a newsworthy message—to the right outlet. Often the best outlets for this purpose are the trade show’s own channels, assuming they have a magazine or some other type of newsroom. Independent and trade journalists can also be pitched. In any event, the angles you pitch must always align with what the outlet or journalist tends to write about; the goal is to give them a story they want to publish.
Media meet-and-greets are another excellent opportunity to win editorial coverage. You can begin by sending invitations several weeks in advance to a shortlist of promising journalists—free of commitment—for a casual conversation ahead of the show. This allows journalists to form relationships with your experts without the pressure of a formal interview, and lets them decide for themselves whether they wish to pursue a story.
3. Schedule Interviews for the Show
The next step is to plan out interviews to be carried out during and after the show. These interviews can be for digital, print, or video media, and can incorporate product demonstrations where appropriate. You can begin by strategically assigning topics and messages to various experts within the business and sharing those talking points with journalists in advance. You can also provide a schedule for journalists to secure a brief interview window.
How you cast the speaking roles is key to both the delivery of the message and the audience’s perception of your business as a whole. The CEO will likely lead with vision and strategy, for instance, while the Product Manager delves into technical details about the offering.
Once the speakers and talking points have been established, each expert must be thoroughly prepared for their interview. It is advisable that all speakers undergo thorough media training if they have not done so in the past. If a speaker is uncomfortable speaking on camera or under time restraints, you may want to reassign their role to a more willing candidate.
4. Track Engagement and Follow Up
Even with proactive press releases and scheduled interviews, it is worth remembering that journalists must often juggle dozens of approaching deadlines and potential stories. Intentionally following up with journalists after the trade show has concluded is therefore your best way to ensure that they remember your presentation amidst all the noise.
To do so, you must first prepare a media report. This can take whatever form best allows you to track media engagement in real time throughout the trade show. You should record a name, outlet, and topic of interest for every journalist that stops at the booth to make conversation, as well as any commitments they make or story angles they suggest.
Once the event has concluded you can send a tailored note to each journalist that summarizes your conversation with them and provides additional resources for their reference. Any data or quotes you promised should also be included. This step removes the need for journalists to resume communication and makes it easy for them to prioritize your message when covering the trade show.
Bottom Line
Trade shows offer a chance to build impactful relationships, face-to-face and in real time. Yet the stories that continue to be told after the show are the ones which will ultimately be remembered. It only follows, therefore, that building relationships with the press should be a strategic priority for every exhibition—not only to echo the messages you are sharing today, but to amplify your voice in the months and years to come.
Be sure to check out our other blogs on useful and interesting public relations topics, like how digital content optimization can enhance your owned content.