Exhibition PR Etiquette

If you are an events organizer or are exhibiting at a show, here are a few extra tips on how you can maximize your media coverage during the event.

Provide clear information well ahead of time
Be sure to put clear contact information for the exhibition period, the actual street address of the venue and, as an exhibitor, a Stand Number on your press release.

Publications covering these exhibitions work to long production lead times, often two or three months ahead of the show, and produce exhibition previews.

Exhibition Press Kits
If you miss the deadline for Exhibition Previews then prepare a Press Kit for the Press room at the show. Editors trawl these for stories and will usually do a Review of the event. Ditto above contact information. But make the Kit light and not bulky. USB sticks and one sheet of paper are fine!

Press Functions
Press Conferences at Shows should be short, sharp and to the point. We do not need a corporate lecture on the wonders of Acme Packaging.

Be sure to co-ordinate your conference with the Organisers Press event schedule. Journalists often have to attend many conferences in a few days and while we value and appreciate your hospitality a coffee and cake is often sufficient, NOT a three course lunch which takes 1.5 hours.

DO have someone responsible for meeting and greeting the Press on your exhibition stand

Last but not least…
DO NOT leave a member of the Press twiddling their thumbs while you try to find a person on the stand to talk to them or give them a Brochure because there is no Press Kit!!! .

Editors’ Pet Hates
PR SPAM!Worldwide IPPO members work for approximately 70 different publications – each has its own editorial focus – technology, package printing, design, plastics, paper, metal etc.

Understand that each of these publications has its own target market which it is never going to deviate from without good reason.
So don’t mass-mail the entire IPPO Member list:

Put yourself in the position of the editor of, lets say, a plastics publication, and amongst the hundreds of press release emails you receive there is always one or two, every month, from a company promoting corrugated carton erectors.

The solution is simple, reset your spam filter to include all correspondence from that company – effectively blacklisting them!


Worse:
The email that reads “Please find attached our latest press release, hope you can find space for it”… well we might, if they could be bothered to tell us what it is about.What that company mail is telling us is that “we can’t be bothered to summarise the basic content of the Press Release so you’ll just have to open the attachment and read it for yourself”.

That’s interpreted as being rude and disrespectfulNo surprises for guessing how long it takes for that to hit the trash can!

Worse still:The above, but in German (only!) and sent to an English language publication.