Last Tuesday saw the launch of a very popular consumer tech product so the days late last week and Monday were spent frantically calling media for RSVPs. So anyway, in the end, we had an expected turn-out of 60 pax which was really good -- even taking into count the token 10 journos who may not turn up.
But guess what.. on D-Day, the drop out rate was like almost half?! And I've almost never had such a drop-out rate for press briefings, especially for this particular client.
Needless to say, my entire day was... spoiled because on one hand, it's not fully your fault; but it is too? Wondered if I should have called media again on Monday to remind them but I thought otherwise because that may have been too pushy, especially since I just spoke to them on the previous Friday? Well...
And I guess another contributing factor was that on that particular Tuesday, there were two other tech events lined up so most of the tech writers had to rush off to attend the next.
The client was nice enough to not mention anything but you know, when things go right, people sort of remember but when things go wrong -- you bet it remains in their minds!
Suppose this may be a learning curve, the only pointers I can take away from this is:
1. Remind media, even if they think you are a nag
2. Schedule media events on different days as much as possible if the product is not time-sensitive. True, the second event wasn't exactly at the same time but some writers left almost immediately which didn't leave me time to mingle and get to know them better.
Till the next one then.
Yvette
Curtin Singapore
1 comment:
Don't be despaired by the drop-outs. It is normal especially with the number of competing events happening. When I did the media RSVPs for one of the events in June, I equally had a tough time, even with the help of student helpers to help me comb through the media list.
Cheers, Lydia
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