Events provide great opportunities for businesses, whether you want to showcase a product, generate content, network to a captive audience or increase awareness around a new campaign. However, it’s important to stop and ask why you are holding an event. The question sounds simple enough, but the answer needs to be specific with a clear goal. The reason why you’re holding an event will also effect just about every other decision you make – budget, theming, timing, guest list and food. There are many reasons behind why an event could be the correct platform for your business goals and the four points below should be factored during the initial planning stages and before ruling out holding a potential event. STORYTELLING Events can provide a captive audience, they give you access to a group of people for a certain amount of time where you can weave in key messaging and showcase your brand in the best possible light. Which is why you need to have a reason behind why you’re holding the event to get them there. There’s no doubt that free alcohol and food will always help, but you need a story to provide news and content angles for media and influencers – helping them promote your brand and stand out from your competition. MEANINGFUL INTERACTION Face to face interaction is more meaningful than an email or social post. We’ve become reliant on technology, knowing more about family and friends through checking up on them online than by actually talking to them. Events allow us to have meaningful interactions with consumers, media and influencers helping develop relationships and have a genuine interaction on behalf of a brand. We all have favourites, so in the case of media and influencer relationships, events can strengthen ties helping increase coverage and inclusion on an ongoing basis. REACHING THE MASSES You may only have 50 people in the room, but with the right PR your reach goes much further. Events let you showcase and promote to many, which is why it’s important to have the right guest list. Don’t just look at who you’re inviting, but also look into who they influence and if their audience is the right fit for your campaign or brand. Working with a PR agency to create and manage your event over an events team can help you achieve a further reach through their knowledge of the media landscape, influencer relationships and existing media contacts. COMPETITIVE EDGE Events take courage – they put your brand in the spotlight and you need to be prepared for that. If you’re hosting an event it needs to have a competitive edge, something creative and new that gets you noticed. Aligning your brand to a certain trend, should it be mindfulness or the latest food craze, could help you reach a new audience, create a story and build brand awareness through the achieved coverage. Events are all about strengthening your brand and with that being said promotion doesn’t begin and end at the event. It’s an ongoing endeavor that events can help with through the ability to facilitate attendee and press engagement, helping you build future relationships, spread awareness through PR reach and generate engaging content. An example of how Richmond & Towers has brought this philosophy to life was when Beefeater challenged us to create a year-round PR campaign for the Beefeater Distillery that catered for the lifestyles and needs of various visitor segments, to help drive awareness and increase footfall in their distillery. With the Beefeater London team, we created the London Tonic Series, a series of monthly cultural and creative events held in the distillery and featuring the best of London’s arts scene. Flicking through our little black book of contacts, we secured a fresh mix of London’s leading figures – including spoken word artists, all-star mixologists and stand-up comedians – to host engaging, interactive and educational events that we promoted through London’s listings and lifestyle media. The eight events also tapped into wider London trends, to secure media interest, and tied back to the quality, heritage or occasion for enjoying Beefeater Gin to ensure the brand was always at the heart of the experience. The results from these specially crafted events highlight how a well thought out event can benefit a brand. Whilst 831 people visited the distillery across our eight events, this was amplified dramatically through the 169 pieces of secured coverage which had a reach of over 115 million – demonstrating the halo effect of PR agencies can have when running events.
We have been awarded the PRCA Gold CMS Award for achieving CMS certification for 17 years of continued excellence. The Communications Management Standard (CMS) is awarded by the PRCA (Public Relations and Communications Association) to companies who demonstrate operational excellence. We are audited annually and scored on nine core areas… Read more
We can’t lie – it’s been a great start to 2023. And now we’re almost halfway through the year, we wanted to fill you in on what’s been keeping us busy. We’ve had plenty to celebrate over the last couple of months: amazing new clients, incredible award wins… a brand-spanking-new… Read more
I’m going to kick this off with a good ol’ cliché, because that’s what all decent blogs do: in a world that’s changing at a rapid pace, it’s no surprise that influencer marketing is moving just as quickly. Read more
Learning about new clients, their goals, objectives and business as we start working with them is one of the most exciting parts of what we do. But the reality of time constraints on the client’s part can often result in the start of a working relationship becoming a crammed session of briefings via internal documents and conference calls that doesn’t always result in an agency really getting a true understanding of a company or brand’s DNA. Fortunately, we have a solution. The best way to work with a PR agency is to treat them as a partner, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in your business. Your PR team needs to be as passionate about your brand as you, and that’s our approach and starting point when working with new clients. It’s vital to get under the skin and learn about every aspect of a new client’s business. Face time is important, but many agencies forget to meet the people outside of the marketing team. It’s key to meet everyone involved with the business, from those working in production and the experts behind brand development to the customers who buy a company’s brands. When we started working with Estrella Damm, a Mediterranean beer brewed at source, and so heavily influenced by its local culture, we believed it was imperative to visit Barcelona to see where the beer for this 140 year old brand was made and what inspired the brand’s voice. The full Estrella Damm account team from Richmond & Towers spent two days visiting the brewery, seeing the production line and meeting the team who ensure every bottle of Estrella Damm tastes the same as the last – a tough task when all ingredients are 100% natural and can be affected by seasonal weather changes. This was then followed by a tour around the city and the brand’s key on-trade accounts to see how local restaurants and bars showcased Estrella Damm. Lastly, we were taken to the historic family run factory Ceramica Cumella, where the unique Estrella Damm ceramic draught beer fonts are made. These fonts were designed by Martí Guixé, a world-renowned Catalan artist, and are individually handmade by ceramicist Antoni Cumella for restaurants and bars around the world (a process that takes seven days). Now with an improved understanding of the brand, culture and people, as an agency we’re better equipped to bring the Estrella Damm story to life. In fact, we’re fizzing with new ideas. What our experience really reinforces, though, is that there is nothing more important than understanding a client’s business and what shapes them. Passion for a brand is contagious and when you fully immerse yourself in a brand you can learn not only the key messages they want you to portray, but also the best way to shape them for the end audience. Taking this approach to working with a new client helps us to understand both a company and its brands, aiding us to create better solutions. It goes without saying that face to face interaction helps strengthen our relationships. And we also believe that time focused solely on a client’s brand, outside of the office and away from computer screens also allows us to show our dedication and enthusiasm for creating a positive start to work together – as partners.
We have been awarded the PRCA Gold CMS Award for achieving CMS certification for 17 years of continued excellence. The Communications Management Standard (CMS) is awarded by the PRCA (Public Relations and Communications Association) to companies who demonstrate operational excellence. We are audited annually and scored on nine core areas… Read more
We can’t lie – it’s been a great start to 2023. And now we’re almost halfway through the year, we wanted to fill you in on what’s been keeping us busy. We’ve had plenty to celebrate over the last couple of months: amazing new clients, incredible award wins… a brand-spanking-new… Read more
I’m going to kick this off with a good ol’ cliché, because that’s what all decent blogs do: in a world that’s changing at a rapid pace, it’s no surprise that influencer marketing is moving just as quickly. Read more