The brain ache of events and speaking opportunities
With the number of B2B events increasing at an exponential rate it is difficult to keep track of those key events that can be leveraged for public relations purposes.
Many BCM clients actively attend industry events and in many cases they choose to exhibit or present technical papers. However, being successful in obtaining a “speaking slot” is as much about planning as it is identifying an interesting and relevant topic that will resonate with the event audience.
As a PR agency that is particularly active in the Energy sector we handle the PR for some of the world’s leading Oil & Gas events. As part of our PR work we regularly publicise a “call for papers”. The initial response is usually poor with only a few abstracts being submitted for consideration. As the deadline for the submission of the papers increases so does the response. Is this just lethargy on behalf of the potential authors? We don’t think so, based on our feedback it’s simply lack of planning.
Any PR agency that addresses thought leadership as part of a client brief should be aware of the potential speaking opportunities and the benefit they bring in terms of focussed communication to a targeted stakeholder community. Moreover, a good PR agency should be advising their clients of appropriate subject matter, writing an abstract and actively pitching that abstract to the event organiser.
Why do speaking opportunities so often slip through the PR net? As we said at the start of this blog because we believe that it’s difficult to keep track of key events. So we have decided to take on this responsibility and have started by producing a calendar that captures “key” Oil & Gas events. Of course “key” is open to interpretation and inevitably this project is a continuous work in progress but we hope you will find it useful.
You will find the calendar here. http://bit.ly/1tE21xN
* If you are an event organiser and you would like us to add your event please get in touch.