Public Relations for Special Events
Article provided by HMA Public Relations
Public relations for a special event takes creative thinking balanced with practicality. Events draw attention to your organization or bring people to your place of business. Open houses, fund-raisers, trade shows, awards ceremonies, contests, stunts, receptions, speeches by V.I.Ps., are examples of special events. With the influx of special events today, it is critical to position yours correctly and positively to ensure the attendance your desire.
Whether you are creating a new event or revamping an old one, the outcome will be infinitely improved if you use a public relations plan. The definition thought to be many things is best defined as the management of communication between an organization and its publics. Essentially, public relations encompasses the following, all of which can apply to special events:
- Increasing an organization’s overall visibility;
- Planning and implementing the organization’s efforts to influence or change public policy;
- Communicating with employees,
- Supporting a product or marketing effort; and
- Providing an external, objective viewpoint or perspective.
In order to effectively communicate with those you want to reach you must determine what the goal of your special event is. Your organization’s mission and goals can serve as the foundation for a strategic public relations plan for your events.
- Are you trying to inform, educate or entertain?
- Increase awareness or attendance of the event?
- Build a base support from a specific audience?
- Facilitate good community relations?
The value of a public relations campaign stems from identifying key problems and opportunities. Once an organization defines its needs, a comprehensive plan can be developed. This plan often serves as a road map, allowing an organization to stay focused on its goals.
The most popular way to communicate the messages of your organization and its special events is through the use of media relations, which is the proactive pursuit of positive, targeted media attention for an organization. It involves enlisting the media’s interest in and coverage of your event. We all know the value of a well-placed and well-timed newspaper article or television report and its impact on our event.
Assuming an event is to be covered by the local media, there needs to be separate and special planning for this element. Are the news kits prepared and complete? Is there someone available to facilitate the media’s arrivals, answer questions, and ease their ability to cover the event? Juggling the needs of the media, especially television, and the guests is a fine art in and of itself.
To add value to a special event, an organization may wish to implement promotions, which are activities designed to further enhance the media relations effort.
One thing to note – because employees often function as representatives of an organization, please remember to include Internal Communications/Employee Relations as part of your public relations strategies. These are activities designed to build sound relationships between an organization and its employees, which is a critical element in fostering positive attitudes and behaviors. After all, your best spokespersons should be the people who work with you.
Once you prioritize your goals, you can develop objectives. Ultimately, these goals and objectives will become the basis of developing strategies, tactics and tasks specifically oriented to your management’s needs.
Take time to evaluate right after the event while the details are fresh. You may want to consider having a questionnaire for participants to fill out. Some general evaluative criteria include:
- Did the event fulfill its goals and objectives? Why or why not?
- Identify what worked and what needs fine-tuning. Which vendors should be used again?
- What items were missing on the checklist?
- Was the event well attended?
- Was informal and formal feedback about the event positive?
- Given all that went into staging, was it worth doing?
Public relations for special events is an effective to tool to consistently communicate your messages, build relationships with the people your are trying to reach and maintain a positive image.
