Guide to Engaging the Media

The following guide contains recommended guidelines for VoiceCon exhibitors when dealing with the press in advance of the event.

• Read industry news and become familiar with the coverage specific to your company's product or service. News is an ongoing dialogue, and your company's newsworthiness is essentially its ability to contribute to that dialogue and add a fresh perspective. Take the time to get a sense of where the discussion around your industry is headed; this knowledge will pay dividends when it actually comes time to interacting with journalists.
• Start identifying the specific journalists who cover your category. The more you know about journalists' specific interests, the better chance you have at offering them angles that are actually valuable to them. Read the news on an ongoing basis, and make note of which industry journalists are appropriate targets for your company's publicity efforts. That way, by the time the pre-registered list is made available one month in advance, you'll have a good sense of who you want to pursue meetings with, as well as the specific angles that will give you the best chance at generating their interest.
• Review the various PR opportunities available to exhibitors in the PR Opportunities section. Many of these opportunities - including press conferences, press release distribution and media kit distribution - will bolster your company's ability to interact with the media onsite. Pay close attention to the respective instructions and deadlines for each of these items, and integrate them into your overall media outreach approach, where possible.
• Conduct outreach to appropriate pre-registered media before the show and invite them to meet you at the show, either in your exhibit booth, or in a private area somewhere close to the show floor.
  
  Reasons why you might want to meet a journalist at the show:
• Your company would like to share unique industry perspectives that might be interesting to the journalist's ongoing coverage.
• You have a new product or service that you would like to discuss.
• You would simply appreciate the opportunity to make an introduction so that you can touch base again further down the road when you have something more newsworthy for them to cover.

There are a number of valid reasons you might wish to meet a journalist at the event. The important thing to remember is that - when reaching out to him or her - you respect the way that he or she prefers to receive information. Typically, proper etiquette is to send an email (no attachments) requesting a meeting or phone call. As a general rule, media operate on tight deadlines, so calling a journalist when they're busy wrapping up an important story is more likely to aggravate him or her than it is to help your objective of setting up a meeting. Be sensitive to the volume of requests that journalists receive, and understand that coverage beats change regularly, and the subject matter that you're offering might not be consistent with a new editorial priority.

Please do not send blast emails to the entire pre-registered media list. Some of the journalists on the list may not have an interest in your product or service category, so take the time to target the journalists who are appropriate for your specific subject matter.

Recommended Activities During the Show

Prepare your booth for journalist visitation. Many journalists at VoiceCon look for an exciting new product or story by roaming the show floor. Therefore, it is important to prepare your booth personnel and to make sure that technically knowledgeable staff members and a representative spokesperson are available to answer any questions posed by journalists. It is also important to have extra copies of your company's press kit on hand for journalists who stop by.

Introduce yourself to journalists, when possible. Journalists at VoiceCon will be clearly identifiable with a unique media badge. If you have the opportunity to shake a journalist's hand and introduce yourself, go for it. Ad hoc discussions are an important part of the experience at the event, and who knows, you may have a perspective or insight that the particular journalist you just introduced yourself to might be interested in at that point in time.

Set the table for future discussions with the journalist. You don't have to eye the opportunity as your one chance to make an impression on the journalist. Building relationships with journalists is a process, and you should consider your time at VoiceCon as an opportunity to lay the foundation for new relationships with journalists (as well as to strengthen existing relationships). If you view every interaction with a journalist as an opportunity for coverage that you must convert on, you're not setting the stage for future interactions. Be receptive to what the journalist is hoping to learn about at the event. If your product/picture fits into that picture, fantastic. If not, get a business card and touch base further down the road, when your subject matter is more relevant to what they're looking for.

Recommended Activities After the Show

Follow up with a thank you note. Whether you had a formal interview with a reporter, or just a casual conversation and exchange of business cards - take a moment to write a quick thank you email. It's a nice gesture that will enable you to extend the interaction, as well as share any additional information that you might not have had the opportunity to share while at the event.

Review the final, registered media list. As a general rule, a significant number of the journalists who attend conferences don't sign up until the last minute. Because their presence at the event wasn't detected until they actually showed up and registered onsite, exhibitors might not have been able to target them for meetings and/or product demonstrations. For that reason, we post the final, registered media list to the VoiceCon site after the event. This list provides you with the opportunity to reach out to the journalists you weren't able to secure time with, and to pursue future meetings/opportunities to secure visibility for your company.