The final Marketing Theatre session of International Confex 2021 Day 1, 1 September, was presented by Katie Morhen, director at specialist communications agency for event tech, 52eight3.
Morhen explored the topic of how to create impactful event PR campaigns that both re-engage audiences and ensure events are at the epicentre of the industry’s comeback. She noted PR strategies were always important but even more so in some cases such as when an event has a new team or is a launch. She said effective event PR could build brand awareness, open doors to new conversations, help to get seen by new audiences, improve reputation and change conversations.
As a result of event PR, Morhen said organisers could expect increased traffic on a website, improved SEO, incoming enquiries, increased social media following and engagement, and a stronger and more authoritative voice in the market. Before starting a campaign, she said, organisers should define a strategy, understand their current situation, identify their key audience and craft campaign ideas.
Morhen suggested that organisers should not just have one campaign in event PR and instead need to have multiple campaigns. “This keeps the interest,” she said. “Digital event PR is like a monster that you need to keep feeding.”
She said such campaigns need to be creative, emotive and interesting. A question to keep in mind was: “Does it link back to your website and would you talk about it with your mates in the pub? If the answer is no, ditch it.”
