Face To Face – Holding Effective Press Conferences

Invitations

Write a warmly-worded, friendly letter of invitation, which should be personally addressed to each journalist you intend to invite. There should be a heading that summarises what the event is about, plus the date, the time, and the venue. The body of the letter will give just enough information to grab the journalists’ interest, but won’t give the whole story away. It is also as well to include a small form for a response: ‘I will/will not be able to attend the press conference’. Focus particularly on your ‘hit list¹ of priority publications that you use in your features work, and make a special effort to get someone to come from each of them.

If possible, send out the letter at least three or four weeks before the date of the conference; journalists’ diaries fill up quite a lot in advance. Then, about ten days before the conference, get on the phone and follow up those you haven’t heard from. Don’t forget to notify the venue of the numbers 24 hours before the event.

Press Packs

These are essential. For each journalist you’ll need a reasonably smart folder (personalised with the journo’s name is a nice touch) containing a press release giving them the story to save them work, pics where appropriate, a backgrounder on the product(s) or organisations involved in the story, and a profile of your own organisation. You should also have a pin-on name badge for each guest, which you affix as they arrive and sign in. However, we suggest that you do not hand the press packs out when the journalists first arrive - some of them may take the pack and quietly bunk off without listening to the presentations. Leave the packs out of sight until after question time.

Speakers

Who you pick to make the presentation(s) will naturally depend on the subject. However, do try to put senior people up in front of the journalists; it subtly emphasises the importance of the event if, for example, the journos are welcomed by your MD or general manager and then introduced to the R&D and marketing directors to make the presentations.

Needless to say, all your people at the press conference must be briefed with the points in Chapter 8 that we listed earlier. It’s all too easy (and sharp journalists know this!) to relax one’s guard a little too far after a pleasant buffet lunch and a glass or two of the venue’s house white, and say something it would have been better to have left unsaid. Remember the corporate disaster that resulted from the chairman of a certain retail chain cheerfully describing some of his products as ‘crap’ at a press conference!

Refreshments

You could offer morning coffee when they arrive to sign in, and after presentations – and questions if you’re feeling expansive but not expensive – a choice of house wine or soft drinks with a fairly simple but well-prepared and presented buffet lunch. Don’t forget possible vegetarians. And even if you are feeling expensive, don’t overdo the hospitality with a three-course lunch accompanied by vintage claret, brandy and port. Not many will really appreciate it, and it could be teatime before you’ve got rid of the last of the stragglers.

Afterwards

After the conference, send copies of the press release and background material a.s.a.p. to all the journos on your normal distribution list that you didn’t invite, or who couldn’t make it. It’s also a good plan to hold a postmortem with your colleagues who were at the conference to see whether any of them were asked questions during lunch, or if any of the journos showed a particular interest which would repay following up.