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Special Events

These can be receptions to elegant dinners to stunts. Special events can be designed to reach a specific narrow target audience, such as individuals interested in college savings plans to major events like a strawberry festival designed to promote tourism and regional agriculture. Stunts, such as building the world's largest ice cream sundae during National Ice Cream month captures the attention of an audience in the immediate area, but also attracts the attention of mass media such as television news and major newspapers, which provide broad reach. As with all public relations programs, special event planners must work hard to ensure the program planned conveys the correct message and image to the target audience.


Speaking Engagements

Speaking before industry conventions, trade association meetings, and other groups provides an opportunity for company experts to demonstrate their expertise to potential clients/customers. Generally, these opportunities are not explicitly for company or product promotion; rather they are a chance to talk on a topic of interest to potential customers and serve to highlight the speaker's expertise in a field. Often the only mention of the company or its products is in the speaker biography. Nevertheless, the right speaking engagement puts the company in front of a good target audience and offers networking opportunities for generating customer leads.

Sponsorships

Companies and brands use sponsorships to help build goodwill and brand recognition by associating with an event or group. Marketers can examine sponsorship opportunities to find those that reach target groups, fit within a specified budget, and provide sponsorship benefits that suit the marketer's objectives. There are numerous local, regional, national, and international sponsorship opportunities ranging from a local art center or theatre to larger scale events. Most organizations seeking company sponsors provide information on the variety of sponsorship levels, which include data on event audience, exposure opportunities, which can include signage, T-shirts, public announcements and numerous other opportunities, receptions and much more. Marketers can use this information to help match sponsorship opportunities with the company's objectives.

Employee Communications

For many companies communicating regularly with employees is important in keeping employees informed of corporate programs, sales incentives, personnel issues, as well as keeping them updated on new products and programs. Companies use a variety of means to communicate with employees, including Intranet, email, online and print newsletters. In larger firms an in-house PR department often works in conjunction with the Human Resources Department to develop employee communications.



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