Friday 24 May 2019

Industry event attendance is essential for business success


--> Independent Wiltshire-based PR consultancy redheadPR, which in 2018 marked 15 years of operation, is urging businesses to get out and attend industry events to boost their success. 

Founder and managing director, Sara Tye, is an award-winning business and organisational development expert, and a top 500 international PR and serial entrepreneur. She said: “The power of PR is all about being seen and generating more business. Attending events in your industry is a key part of that. 

“Make sure you run an integrated PR campaign before, during and after the event.”

redheadPR stresses that event attendance boosts a business’s profile, allows entrepreneurs to make more connections, both new and old, and is a good opportunity to sell and capture information on existing and prospective clients. 

Tye added: “Going to an event really forces you to get out there. It’s also a great way of creating content for social media, from video and images to hashtags. And events are becoming more important as Google gets tougher, with so much social media filling the search results pages. 

“There aren’t many trade shows, events and exhibitions that we don’t have experience in, regardless of size, location or sector.” 

Best-selling author, sales trainer, speaker and social media influencer Grant Cardone states: “Develop yourself as an authority to build your brand and raise your profile."

One recent event redheadPR attended was for gardening journalists, the Garden Press Event in late February at London’s Business Design Centre. The consultancy spoke to around 100 journalists on their client's stand, and almost a third (30%) had seen the press release about attendance sent out two days earlier. 


Just over a quarter of attendees (26%) went to the stand to collect goody bags. Social media reach from the event was more than 130,000. 

Tye added: “Liaise well with organisers to get the most from an event. Assess whether the event will be of value by finding out who’s going, who’s speaking there, and so on. Then when you meet someone at an event, find out quickly whether you can help each other. 

“Beforehand, think about what your key message is and how you are getting it across. Think about social media, flyers, video, photography and so on. Consider running a survey at the show, and afterwards don’t forget to follow up with a press release and contacting people you’ve met.

“We can help teach you how to network. In fact, having us at your side takes the pressure off as we do all of the above and more.” 

The events sector is worth £42.3bn to the UK economy, and there are more than 1.3 million business events held in the UK annually. Those attending these events spent just under £40bn last year. (Source: Eventbrite) 

UK exhibitions attract over 13 million visitors each year, generating £11bn in spend. 

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