PR Tips
If you want to improve your PR success at IMEX, please read and follow this advice. We have consulted widely with meetings and incentive travel industry journalists who explain precisely what you must do to secure better coverage for your IMEX news stories. Our PR team also knows from many years' experience what works best when organising a press conference or press event on your stand at IMEX.
Remember to share the good advice outlined here with your PR person, your exhibition team and any other colleagues who may deal directly with the press. If you do, your efforts will definitely pay off.
The Five Most Common Mistakes to Avoid
1. Sending the IMEX PR team, the IMEX Daily Paper or journalists pictures that are too small, too large or poor quality.
2. Sending irrelevant attachments such as sales brochures or leaflets.
3. Writing news stories that are too long. 250 words is good. 400 words acceptable. Anything else is too long.
4. Writing without doing any research on the publication. Press releases that are written to please everyone will please no one. You will get your best results if you invest time in tailoring the headline and the first paragraph to reflect the different interests of the magazines you are targeting.
5. Not making your email subject line interesting enough. Journalists will not even open your email if your headline isn't topical, relevant or interesting. Do not be tempted to write 'urgent' to cheat them into opening it. This will look like spam. Try using a simple format such as: "NEWS: XYZ to announce/build/launch new ZYX..."
Advice from key industry journalists.
When to Hold a Press Conference
Journalists who come to IMEX are often very busy. They will not attend your press conference unless they believe you have a very strong story to tell and a compelling reason for them to come. We strongly advise you book a press conference room only if you can put the time and effort into publicising your press conference before the show.
It is far better to offer the media the chance to meet your sales team or directors on your stand for one-to-one interviews than to hold a press conference and be disappointed with a small turnout.
If in doubt, please ask for our advice.
The Power of Social Media
The power and importance of social media has grown since the launch of IMEX. Social media channels such as Twitter, Linkedin, Xing, Facebook or blogs are best used as tools to drive traffic to your website. However, using them effectively and appropriately will also build trust and create goodwill towards your company or organisation.
Blogs
Use these to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise or to share opinion, viewpoints and industry trends.
Use the 140 words in a 'tweet' to instantly answer the question, "What am I doing now?"
XING is a social network for business professionals which has more than 10.8 million members worldwide who use XING to boost their business, job, and careers. It is popular in Germany.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 120 million members and growing rapidly. See LinkedIn Learning Center.
Facebook is a great tool for sharing photos, videos and other content that can bring an event or issue to life.
More Resources
About the German Media
The German media landscape is one of the biggest and most diverse in the world. It includes around 380 daily newspapers, 1,800 general magazines, 3,700 special interest magazines, 90 TV broadcasting studios, 200 radio stations and a variety of online news and media providers.
The volume of advertising in the German media has dropped in recent years. As a result editorial space has also reduced. Therefore you are likely to face an even tighter relationship between paid-for advertising and editorial.
Take this into account when you contact the media and be aware that you may need to budget for media cooperation or advertising in order to guarantee your editorial is published.
