Organizations can deliver more information than a press release affords, and spokespeople can explain the wider implications of the news in greater detail.
In addition, a press conference is an efficient way to brief numerous journalists and news outlets at once. Briefing 10 journalists individually in 30-minute interviews would take five hours of a spokesperson’s time, whereas with a one-hour press conference, you can share information with 10 journalists simultaneously.
Recently Communiqué PR had the opportunity to support Bank of America’s press conference with the Seattle Police Department (SPD) in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. The press conference announced the mega-bank’s participation in the SPD’s Safe Place initiative, an effort to make Seattle safer for its diverse communities by providing places of refuge for victims of LGBTQ-related crimes or harassment.
B of A’s team organized the event and relied on Communiqué PR to manage media outreach. Based on that success, we offer these best practices for organizing press conferences.
To hold a successful press conference, you should:
1. Have relevant and newsworthy information to share. If there isn’t a timely news hook, busy journalists will not attend. Timing is crucial for reporters to map out their schedules and plan timely, relevant stories to air or publish. For example, our press conference happened days before the Seattle Pride weekend celebration, so equality and support for the LGBTQ community were hot topics.
2. Use credible spokespeople. Have two to four knowledgeable people deliver your message; each one should be present for three to five minutes, ample time to deliver key messages.
Our press conference had six speakers, which is higher than the norm, but each person had specific expertise and information to share.
3. Create photo opportunities. In order to get broadcast journalists to attend, you must offer compelling photo and video opportunities. Ask: Will you need a banner behind the podium? Is the signage easy to read? Will there be visually compelling activities?
4. Hold it at a convenient place and time. Mid-morning is ideal for a press conference, because it accommodates news cycles and usually aligns with reporters’ schedules. Remember, journalists are on tight schedules, so hold the event at a place they can get to quickly and easily. The Capitol Hill neighborhood is a centrally located, diverse community with LGBTQ-friendly businesses and rainbow-painted crosswalks, so this made it a particularly conducive place for the SPD Safe Places press conference, both for location and visual impact.
5. Develop a compelling media advisory/invitation. If possible, you will want to send your media advisory out to print new outlets about three days in advance of your press conference. For broadcast media, they should get the invitation one day in advance. You will also want to make sure your event is on the daybooks of wire services. (A daybook is a localized news distribution service that delivers your news and event information to a specific city.)
6. Focus on the details. Here are several other important things to keep in mind when organizing a press conference:
- Create an agenda and make sure all the spokespeople are clear on their roles and responsibilities during the press conference.
- Make sure spokespeople feel comfortable making their remarks and have anticipated any questions they might receive. It is also important to ensure there is no message overlap among the speakers. Each speaker should have a unique message to deliver.
- Designate someone to greet the TV reporters and make sure they know what access they will have for shooting video.
- Provide journalists with any necessary background material, or follow up via email after the press conference to provide fact sheets or supplemental information they might need.
- Ask spokespeople to make themselves available after the press conference in case journalists need additional sound bites or quotes.
- Share articles and other content from the event on social media. You also may want to share your photos of the event on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Finally, consider asking other community leaders and stakeholders to share the information along with any resulting press coverage.
Jennifer Gehrt is a founding partner of Communiqué PR. A version of this article originally appeared on the agency’s blog. This article was previously published on PR Daily in August 2016.
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