A fully implemented PR campaign should include a number of thought leadership opportunities for a company to share its vision, articulate its message, influence its market and reach new customers.
Speaking opportunities are a great way to increase a client’s credibility and visibility among shareholders, their audience, and the media. Securing speaking opportunities at events tailored to a client’s industry should be a part of every PR plan to increase exposure and allow professionals the opportunity to continue networking.
To enhance your ability to have your client accepted at these events, submitted abstracts have to be unique yet also hit all of the requirements.
Research
When deciding whether or not you should submit a speaker abstract, start off with research. Look into the company that is hosting the event. If it’s a publication, make sure your clients fit under their umbrella. A good way to check this is to see if you have pitched them before.
Once you see that they are a fit, start looking into event agendas from previous years. This will give you some idea of the types of sessions that were presented in years past.
Set up
Review the entire speaker portal, even if you have to create an account. This will give you an idea of how long drafting an abstract will take and exactly what the event programmers are looking for.
Saving their template is a great way to present this opportunity to your client if they wish to draft their own abstract or even submit it themselves. This will give you a step-by-step submission process so there are no hiccups or missed pieces of information that you’re scrambling to find last minute.
Drafting
Here comes the fun part! After ensuring that your client is a good fit for the event, you get to begin drafting your speaker abstract. This should hit all the marks that they laid out on the submission form but should also show the strengths of the speaker you wish to submit.
The best way to go about an abstract is to start with what you want the audience to take away from the session. From there, you can start summarizing what the speaker plans to say without giving too much away.
If accepted, the event organizer will usually use the speaker abstract as part of the agenda. This is why it's so important to really take your time on it. Both the committee and conference-goers will be seeing this, and if sessions run concurrent to one another, the abstract will help people choose what session they would like to attend.
Tracking
Tracking might just be the most important step of submitting an abstract. Track when you initially shared the opportunity with the client, when you shared for review and when you submitted. This will give you an idea of how long it takes for internal approval, meaning you can get a good idea of a timeline for the next submission.
Speaking opportunities are a crucial step in a successful PR plan. The brand awareness exhibited and connections that are forged at these events ensure success in the client’s industry.
Autumn Minnich is an Account Executive at Connect2 Communications.