By Danny Sullivan

Industry events, such as conferences and tradeshows, can be a great place to connect with the media that cover your market, but is there any point in meeting with them if you’re not announcing anything of note?

For many organizations, the media are viewed as a channel for communicating news, and little else beyond that. Of course it makes complete sense to arrange media meetings at events when you are launching a new product or have some other major milestone to talk about. But don’t forget the tremendous value that can be gained simply by meeting face-to-face with a key editor, reporter or analyst.

PR is a business where “relationships” are constantly being touted as being key to the success of a program. Here at inmedia, we believe that the strength of the stories you bring to the media has the most bearing on the success or failure of a PR program, BUT we certainly still recognize the significant additional benefit that can result from developing healthy relationships with key contacts.

Meeting with the media at events provides that relationship-enhancing experience, where faces are put to names, and topics of mutual interest can be discussed without any of the hard-sell agenda of a story pitch done over the phone or by email.

And, in my experience, the media are just as happy to meet with companies that play in the sector they cover, whether they have something specific to announce or not. They can also benefit from the relationship factor, which for them can result in exclusives or advance notice on key news, to say nothing of the increased potential for securing commerical opportunities.

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