Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
Include City/State Location And Date In All Event Invites/Reminders
Here’s the sanitized (anonymized) start email I got today:
Subject: Countdown: One week away! Register today!
[EVENT NAME HERE] Expo + Conference
ONE WEEK AWAY! REGISTER TODAY!
Last Chance to Register in Advance for the 2009 [EVENT] Expo + Conference!
What’s missing from the entire message is any mention of where — like a city and state — the heck this event is.
Yeah, I was able to determine the location within one copy/paste/click to Google in my web browser… but I shouldn’t have needed to.
Similarly, here’s a text-averaged version of a kind of message I typically get one or two of per week. (I’ve used a real month, for simplicity.)
[COMPANY] will unveil [NEW STUFF ]in October and would like to brief
you on the new offering at [EVENT NAME] if you will be attending.If available to schedule on either Tuesday, October or 14th
or Wednesday, Oct. 15, [etc]…
Again, see the problem?
Here’s a reply I’ve put together… although I may not actually use it.
(I do have a standard “Thanks, but I’m not planning to attend this event.”
boilerplate message, which I do use frequently.)
Dear PR person,
Thanks for the invite.
There are a lot of events out there. I haven’t heard of
many of them, and don’t know where or when most are.
While the odds are I won’t be attending most events, you’d
make it easier for me to consider your invitation if you
included the location and date in your email invite –
preferably in the first or second paragraph. Including
the full name of the event, and URL, wouldn’t hurt, either.
Yes, I can usually suss this out in three seconds via Google.
But there’s no reason to make me do this.
Thanks,
In case it isn’t clear, here’s the take-away advice:
Include City/State Location And Date In All Event Invites/Reminders
You won’t necessarily get any more press to attend… but who knows? I do my best to poke my head in at local events when I can… but won’t necessarily chase down the “where’s it at” that would let me know it’s local.
(I suspect you’ll also pick up more non-press attendees.)
(CES and other) Show Invite Emails Should Include Key Info! And Track ‘Em!
Filed under: Events, Uncategorized | Tags: Add new tag, CES, event email invites, how to
Leave a Comment CES — the big annual Consumer Electronics Show (www.cesweb.org) is a few weeks ago, and, since I preregistered as Press, I’m getting lots — probably several dozen or more — “we’ll be there, can we set up an appointment” or similar messages daily.
I have no problem with this; it’s the nature of the beast.
But… and especially in the case of mega-large events like CES, vendors (and their PR agencies) could make it easier (well, less hard) on us press folks by MAKING EMAIL USEFUL and TRACKING YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH US.
Keep in mind that even though YOU can dispatch email to hundreds, even thousands of journalists, editors, analysts and bloggers with a single keystroke, it takes each one of us time to respond to each message, whether it’s as simple and quick as “delete without reading” or “add to spam filter,” or taking the time to read, respond with a personal (or personally tweaked) message (I’ve got at least three just for CES — “Yes,” “Maybe,” and “Sorry, but…”).
INFORM US! Start by making sure each email message includes the info we’ll need.
- HAVE A SUBJECT LINE. Hard to believe, but I’m getting a lot with a blank subject line.
- Put KEYWORDS in the subject line; in particular, the COMPANY NAME, PRODUCT, and “CES” …and if possible, the location (site, hall, booth number). And if there’s room, also the year, since email builds up over time.For example, “CES 2009 – MagMonopoles’ New Drouds, LVCC SH3 33333″Phases like “Come see” or “Stop by” or “Meet with” or “Invitation” are OK, room permitting.
- PUT KEY INFORMATION IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH, including:
- The company — if you’re a PR agency, don’t just say “our client(s),” be specific.
- Product(s) — CES 2009 will have 2,700 exhibitors. Don’t expect us to remember who you are and what you do — or have to take time to look you up online because you didn’t take the three seconds to add five or six helpful words.
- WHERE YOU’LL BE. The location is important, especially for a mega-show like CES, which has exhibits in two convention centers, plus two hotels… and the convention centers aren’t small, either. For the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), include the Hall, and for South Hall, include the Hall number/level. E.g., “LVCC South Hall 3 (upper level) 3333.”While we could look this up, if it’s right there in the email we can enter it then-and-there in our planner.
- What associated events/locations will you be at? E.g., will you be at the CES Unveiled, Lunch@Piero’s, Pepcom or ShowStoppers multi-vendor events? Will you be doing any press conferences, or have any meeting rooms? Again, include full location info.
- PUT IT IN TEXT. Don’t just send the info as an attached image, e.g. a GIF, JPG, PDF or whatever. That may be more work to open, it’s more file space… you may lose our attention before we ever see what you’ve sent. You want to include an image, fine, but put the key stuff in text in the message body.
- INFORMATION BEATS CUTENESS. The first three cute messages from whoever sent them might have been tolerable. By the hundredth — or even the tenth — it’s “just the facts — PLEASE!”And — I wish I could say, “Of course,” — use a mail tool that doesn’t include a list to hundreds of TO: names. Sheesh.
- TRACK ‘EM. Now that you’ve sent a well-crafted informative message, KEEP TRACK! And use an email system that lets you modify your list as you go. I’m getting the same message from some vendors every three days — including to ones I’ve already acknowledged.
- DON’T BUG US. If you’ve gotten a response — by email OR phone, don’t (re)send another copy.
- DON’T BUG US. Unless something changes, don’t send a message more than twice.
- DON’T BUG US. Unless the reporter’s registration form says, “OK to contact me by phone,” don’t. Especially if you’ve sent email. Especially if that email’s been responded to.
See you at CES 2009.
(Not all of you, of course… I don’t cover EVERYTHING, and even if I did, there isn’t time to see everything. See my posting from last year, A Few Words (Well, Paragraphs) AboutThe Multi-Vendor Press/Analyst-Only Events, on the inherent infeasibility of this, and why events like Lunch@Piero’s, Pepcom and ShowStoppers don’t just help address this problem, but go a long way to solving it.)
Steenkin’ Badges, We Don’t Need No
Event badges, like street signs for yard sales, have two essential requirements.
1) (Font) Size Matters.
Essential badge information needs to be readable at the appropriate distance, meaning in big enough font.
For a yard sale sign, that means someone driving by, possibly one lane over. For an event, that means several feet away — certainly big enough that somebody standing at hand-shake distance can (assuming good enough vision/glasses/contact lenses) can read your name and title/organization without having to lean forward and squint.
Even for those who don’t have aging eyes, tiny fonts force us to get intrusively close, and make it hard to “scan the crowd” rather than having to be hand-shake-close, just to determine whether this is someone you’re looking to talk to.
Pick a decent font size — 36 or bigger. Pick a readable font, for that matter. Make a few test badges and see if you can read them on somebody six feet away.
(This is why, on my business cards, my name is in a large font — it means I always have a readable name badge with me.)
2) Include Essential Information.
For a yard sale, that’s the date, hours, address, and a directional arrow. For event attendees, essential information means first and last name, title, organization.
So if you’re doing an event where you’re inviting the press (and in general, for that matter, but this is about how to work well with the press), take a minute to check how you’re doing badges. It’s a small thing — but how you do it will make a big difference in how easy/hard it is for the press to find the people they want to talk to, and vice versa… and equally, for sales people to determine who isn’t a prospect.
And here’s some additional advice:
3) Tie a Colored Ribbon!
Make it easy to tell whether somebody’s with the press even before their name can be read. Use color — colored ribbons, labeled PRESS (or MEDIA) — or colored strips at the bottom of badge holders if need be.
And you should also have differently colored ones for speakers, judges, staff or other honored guests. Don’t simply include “PRESS,” “ATTENDEE,” et cetera in same-color all-caps at the bottom of the badge. Make it obvious, like bird plumage.
Again, you’re trying to make it easy for people to spot and sort who’s who even before they read the badge.
4) Wear ‘Em High
Provide clips, pins or whatever to make it easy for people — especially women — to wear their badge as close to neck/shoulder height as possible.
5) Make Sure Your Badge-Readers/Scanners Work
If you’re providing badge readers/scanners, make sure they work — and easily, not after five or six tries.
I’ve been to too many events lately where they didn’t — leading to a lot of grumbling exhibitors, not just because they’d shelled out hundreds of dollars for the device rental, but because this meant they weren’t capturing visitor information reliably.
You should have badges. But they shouldn’t be steenkin’ badges.
