Public Relations is a profession that highly depends on building and maintaining relationships with various stakeholders. A lot of people mistake the profession to be just about ‘media relations’ and in that light they forget the value contributed by other relationships. While there a lot of aspects to our profession, I am going to focus on event partnerships only in this blog:
Industry events are an important aspect of any business. Whether you are in the technology space, lifestyle or any other trade, you will always have event opportunities to participate in and partner with. While handling Public Relations for large IT and lifestyle giants, I have been a part of various event partnerships of that particular business. These partnerships are important PR activities for several reasons, a few of which are listed below:
Industry events are a perfect time for businesses to meet and network with important stakeholders in the industry. While people meet for a short time, if one is intelligent enough they can easily leverage the connections for mutual benefit. Events not only save time for one to research and set-up meetings with people important for your business but also provide them on a platter at one place.
Events are usually packed with sessions and panel discussions designed around important topics of the business. One gets access to the opinions of veteran professionals of their field which gives them a better understanding of what they are doing. These sessions also sometime solve the questions that one is grappling with, at a particular point of time.
Many a times event partnerships come with an important advantage of a speaking opportunity. While the topic of the conversation is a general trade discussion, it is very easy for a brand to fit in their business and marketing communication. Speaking opportunities greatly help in fulfilling business goals of a company.
Having your presence at events highly helps in building brand recall. The branding material- standees, posters, inserts for kits etc. help a company re-iterate its presence and messaging. One can effectively use event partnerships as a good marketing opportunity.
All of the above make for a good reason for communications consultants to include event partnerships in their PR plans in a big way. While the results may not show-up instantly but they definitely lead to several long-term benefits.
– Radhika Nandwani
Radhika is the Corporate Communications Advisor at Dell’s Performance Analytics Group. She started her career in 2011, with one of the leading public relations firms of India – MSLGROUP, specialising in technology brands. The campaigns executed by her while at MSL, have won several public relations industry awards including SABRE and PR Week Asia. In her last role, she was the founding team member and the marketing communications manager at SCoRe. Radhika is an English graduate and holds a Master’s degree in Mass Communication. She loves reading and is passionate about gender equality, food and Bollywood. She can be reached at @RadhikaNandwani on Twitter and here on LinkedIn.
