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Beating the Odds When Pitching Trade Show Media Interviews

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It sounds like a simple request: we’re going to be at such-and-such conference or event and we want to secure some media interviews while we’re there. It makes sense, since trade show media interviews have been a staple of public relations pretty much since Glogg launched the wheel at the first Prehistoric Transportation Expo.

The problem is the business and media worlds have changed quite a bit in the last 10 years, particularly in healthcare. Major trade shows such the HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition have grown tremendously. In fact, before it was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns, HIMSS20 was touting that it would have more than 1,300 exhibitors covering 1.2 million square feet of floor space. And they are not the only ones to experience this proportional growth.

In the meantime, the media world has been shrinking. Overall there are fewer reporters and fewer publications. Budget considerations mean that the remaining publications will be sending fewer reporters to cover conferences, and some may not send any at all – even for large conferences such as HIMSS. 

You can probably see where I’m headed. With so much competition for so few “prizes” the odds are really stacked against you. That’s why it’s important to be on top of your pitching game.

Here are a few suggestions to help you rise to the top of reporters’ must-see lists and secure more trade show media interviews once in-person conferences are a thing again.

First, be realistic

Back when I started at Amendola Communications, it was not unusual for us to target 7-9 media and analyst appointments for our clients at a major trade show such as HIMSS. That is no longer feasible.

The entire media list at a conference that size may have between 100 and 200 names on it. Of those, only a small percentage are likely to cover your company’s segment, and some of the people within that subset will be publishers who aren’t interested in what you’re selling but instead want to sell you on advertising or marketing with their publications.

If you’re lucky, maybe there are 10 names on that list that are appropriate and valuable for media interviews. It’s unlikely those 10 people only cover your niche, however, so there could be dozens of companies competing for their time.

They are also going to want to attend some of the educational sessions, or take part in other activities, so the time they have to devote to booth or media room interviews is actually fairly limited.

You are unlikely to capture the attention of all 10, so expecting a number even close to that range is simply unrealistic. A more practical number is 2-3. If you secure that many interviews with the right people these days you’re doing well.

At a smaller conference, there may only be 10 reporters (or fewer) attending, no matter what the advance media list says. If you can get even one of those 10 to interview your subject matter experts you’re doing well. That’s just the realities and economics of the media world today.

Building the pitch

Now that you know what you’re up against, and how competitive it really is, it’s time to start building the pitch.

If you’re going to be successful in rising to the top of the must-see list, you need to capture reporters attention. The easiest way NOT to do that is to talk about yourself.

If your pitch starts out “(OUR AWESOME COMPANY) has been in healthcare for 20 years. In that time we have helped dozens of hospitals and health systems (DO SOMETHING GENERIC, LIKE IMPROVE OUTCOMES AND LOWER COSTS) you’re going to wind up with a hard pass. No matter how many follow-up calls you make or how much you beat up your agency to get appointments.

There is nothing in that generic pitch that is interesting or urgent to the reporter. Remember that the first three letters in “news” are “new.”

To secure those trade show media interviews you have to present something rare and valuable, right up-front.

Offer a customer

The absolute gold is customer stories. Reporters always, always, always want to talk to customers. Did I say they ALWAYS want to do that?

If you have a customer to speak with, lead with that. Make it the major part of your pitch. You can also offer to hook them up with your SME while they’re there, but telling them they can speak to a customer who has used your product and produced quantifiable results with it moves you to the head of the class.

Talk about a new product or service

If you don’t have a customer to offer, second in line is the introduction of a new product or service. Not just an upgrade of your existing offering but a true innovation. If you can talk about an industry issue and explain how your solution addresses it in a way that has never been done before, you’re bound to capture some interest.

Lead with industry issues

What if you’re just going to be there with no customers and nothing new? Honestly, it’s going to be tough to secure any trade show media interviews. But you never know a reporter might have a hole or two to fill, or may already be a fan of your organization.

In that case, the best you can do is again start with an industry issue and then go into how you solve it versus starting with your company’s boilerplate or “About Us” from the website and then getting around to the problem you solve.

One other thing to keep in mind: although you may love and admire your CEO, unless he/she has an Elon Musk or Bill Gates level of celebrity is probably not that interesting to a reporter. Talk about an issue, then offer up the CEO as someone who can address the solution.

Try working relationships

One other thing you can try is working good, existing relationships with reporters. If you’ve worked with someone a few times in the past that person may be willing to at least do a “drive-by” an unscheduled stop when he/she has a few free moments.

While not as reliable as confirmed trade show media interviews you never know. The reporter may stumble across something interesting and spend some time checking it out.

Of course, if you don’t have any relationships already it might be a good time to speak with a PR agency that does. I can think of one in particular that has an outstanding reputation with reporters and editors in healthcare and health IT.

An agency with a large client roster will sometimes get opportunities not available to the general public, such as a reporter asking for a list of clients attending the conference so he/she can pick and choose the ones he/she wants to visit. That’s the fast track to a trade show media interviews because the reporter is depending on his/her relationship with the agency to lead him/her to the right clients.

No guarantees

Even with all of those tips there is still no guarantee you’ll get the trade show media interviews you desire. There’s a lot of hard work, and not a small amount of luck, that goes into it.

Still, these tips can help you increase your odds and make your own luck. And if you’d like that agency help, give us a call.

Let’s Bring the Human Connection Back to Communication

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We’ve all seen articles in the press about overuse of social media and technology by our kids and teens. It’s absolutely pervasive in school, during classes, and in many homes.

I’ve had numerous conversations with my high school sophomore about her generation’s overuse of technology as a communications tool and how it’s leading to shortfalls in interpersonal skills. These kids don’t really know how to interact with each other without their phones. In fact, they don’t even use their phones for actual phone calls. I could go on, but I won’t. If you have a teenager, I bet you can relate.

Technology can be a great thing for business. We use email universally and texts are even becoming more common. But perhaps like our kids we are overusing it a bit. Maybe we should take a step back and remember the importance of “conversations” either over the phone or ideally face-to-face.

Back in the day in high tech PR, we used to conduct press tours and analyst tours so our clients could have face-to-face meetings with key influencers. It was a great opportunity to educate them about new products or services. And more importantly, it was an opportunity to build or cultivate key relationships.

Through the use of technology, press tours are no longer needed not that the media have a ton of bandwidth for meetings these days. Nor are they concentrated in a few media hubs like they used to be.

We have learned to rely on email pitches, phone interviews and if it’s really something special, maybe a video conference call so we can screenshare and provide a product demo. Again, a great use of technology that saves time and travel budgets, but what about the relationship building?

In healthcare IT, we have conferences and tradeshows such as HIMSS, HLTH, AHIMA, and so on, where we try to schedule a few minutes with very busy journalists and analysts to get some “face time” for our clients and their customers. But these are rushed meetings where we hope to communicate the news ““ fingers crossed that the editor or analyst retains what we talked about along with their 20 other meetings that day. They don’t call it #HIMSSanity for nothing.

We are in public relations, but do we take time to actually build and nurture the relationships anymore?

I’m lucky that I have a local client here in Atlanta who I get to have face-to-face meetings with occasionally. We could certainly conduct our check-ins over the phone and quite often we do. However, when I get the chance to go meet with them and brainstorm in person, plan strategy, discuss new ways of talking about their solutions, and even talk about the weather and learn about their families, it builds bonds. And quite often we end our meetings with hugs not handshakes maybe that’s a Southern thing.

This is a topic that I have been thinking about a lot lately and I’ve tried to incorporate it into my daily work. When I’m planning to send a colleague a complicated, wordy email that would be better discussed live, I choose to pick-up the phone and have a conversation instead. There is no lost nuance that can often result in an email or text communication, and I leave the conversation knowing my colleague a little bit better. And we begin to develop a bond. And hopefully that bond, that communication, delivers a better outcome for our clients.

As entrepreneur Paul J. Meyer said, “Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.”

How can you spend more meaningful time communicating and building business relationships? Let’s not be like our kids.

The Basics of Healthy, Happy Relationships

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Building relationships with journalists takes time. Smashing them to pieces takes little time at all.

One terrible, irrelevant pitch and you could end up on a journalist’s blacklist and that isn’t where you want to be. Because as any good media relations guru will tell you, we need journalists more than they need us.

To build strong relationships and maybe fix bad ones there are some basic rules of the road anyone out there sending pitches should follow, lest you end up in the SPAM folder where email goes to die!

Know What they Write and What Who they Write for Writes

Sometimes a good tongue-twister helps you to remember a basic principle such as this one do a little research! You need to know who the person and the publication is before you pitch him/her.

This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s actually one of the biggest problems editors run into. If they won’t accept company sources for stories and prefer to limit themselves to end-users and customers, you need to know that. And, more importantly, you need to respect that.

No, you cannot change their mind. Instead, because you failed to know who you’re dealing with and respect their rules, you’ll just end up alienating yourself.

Give publications a call before you pitch them. Or, do what I do, drop a quick email with the subject like “Quick Question” and just ask what it’ll take to get a story covered. And then take the response as a Commandment. It’s as simple as that.

Use the Medium of their Choice

Media relations people are told all the time “you have to make the calls!” Well, that’s true sometimes. And sometimes, it’s not true at all.

The fact is if it’s a solicitation or a pitch editors prefer email almost universally. That said, a quick phone call to remind them you sent one is probably OK for most editors. Don’t, however, overstay your welcome. Keep calls brief. And if an editor tells you they prefer email, keep to that avenue.

I have been yelled at on the phone once or twice for calling someone I shouldn’t have. My advice to avoid this is to 1) check your PR software, such as Cision, and read the notes to see if a journalist explicitly states that they prefer email; and 2) try to limit your calls to work numbers.

Just because you can get a journalist’s personal cellphone doesn’t mean you should call them on the same line. Like everyone else, they use their phones primarily to like baby photos on Facebook and to swipe left on Tinder mirror selfies. They probably don’t want a call on their personal line so don’t do it.

Don’t sound like Rachel From Cardholder Services during phone calls, and don’t make your emails look like marketing blasts. Talk and write to editors as if they are real people and as if you’re a real person (I failed to develop a good tongue-twister, but I tried).

Keep it Real

Keep it real. If you’re writing an email, keep it brief and just offer a story. Don’t drone on and on about a product and how great it is no one cares. And if you’re calling an editor, don’t jump into a monologue, because no one will listen.

Just try to have a conversation, weave in the most important information, and be yourself. If you don’t fall back on your personality, you shouldn’t be in media relations.

People skills are a huge part of the job, and good people skills shine most when those people are being themselves.