If you or your business aren’t utilizing a communications plan outside of your standard marketing for an annual event, you’re leaving money on the table.
Ok, that may sound a little like your area’s resident ambulance chasing attorney, but when it comes to an annual gala or conference that businesses and nonprofits spend tens of thousands on, you would be surprised at how many leave out an earned media component. When you’re only speaking to the people who physically show up at your event, you’re limiting your audience. Your event is a great excuse to talk to a broader audience.
Earned media is the term for media coverage that is not paid for, i.e. non-advertising media coverage like interviews, reporters attending your event and posting about it, or even the social media posting of your guests. These are all tactics that can help advance your organization and mission without any additional spending in the process.
- K2 specializes in bringing our campaign media tactics to your event. How does it work? That means being up front, in your face, and finding the message that resonates with your local press corps to drive coverage of your event. Whether that is promoting the stories of the beneficiaries of your gala to pitch interviews in advance, coordinating interviews with VIPs to get cameras in the door of the event itself, or highlighting how much money your event brought in for a good cause after the fact, we can help secure that coverage and bring in additional value from free advertising.
- We will get your spokespeople ready for interviews with intense Q and A sessions in advance, a practice that we’ve also seen be helpful in the boardroom for many of our clients.
- Simultaneously, we’ll be in touch with local news outlets, having conversations with reporters to find storylines that intrigue them and entice them to attend the event. Whether that’s a sit down with a CEO or a human interest piece on those benefiting from the event, these conversations are the cornerstone of advancing your event’s narrative beyond the night’s attendees to a greater regional and national audience.
Hosting an educational conference where 500 people show up but your products can impact thousands? You should be utilizing the media space to talk to that broader audience. Selling tickets to a gala to raise money but only have space for 1000 people? You should be talking to thousands more who could potentially become donors. Our goal is to maximize the impact of all the hard work and investment that has gone into making your event special. By highlighting community impact, special guests, and telling the countless stories that feed into a major gala, we can take the reach of your event to the airwaves, spreading the word far and wide.
– Justin Giorgio, Vice President of Strategic Communications