Press conference
Suitable for:
All types of organisations.
What is it?
A press conference serves to communicate important news (e.g. launch the campaign) connected with an organisation or company and involves the participation of journalists and representatives of the company/organisation. The event offers journalists an interactive forum to find out about your organisation and campaign.
Benefits
- Allows you to provide journalists with much more information than via press release and
- Gives journalists the opportunity to ask questions and set up interviews.
Limitations
- Organising a press conference may involve considerable costs (renting a venue, etc).
Planning your press conference
Plan in advance and consider the following:
- Think in advance about practical issues such as location and resources (desk, podium, speakers, microphones, etc.)
- Know what you want to announce
- Know who you want to involve in order to add weight and credibility to your message. Someone from your organisation should be among the speakers, possibly a senior, high ranking spokesperson.
- Prepare a list of questions & answers for your speakers
- Prepare all handouts in advance: press kits, gifts, etc. Don’t leave this to the last minute!
Timing
- Allocate one hour and allow two or three key speakers
- Press conferences in the morning or early afternoon are most effective. Journalists tend to file their stories in the evening and won’t afford the time to come to a press conference.
- Avoid having a press conference on a Friday as some newspapers will have a different news cycle over the weekend.
Sending the invitation
You can send a ‘save the date’ message to the selected media early on, possibly two weeks prior to the conference, but send the proper invitation a week beforehand, and a quick reminder the day before.
