How to Leverage Events for Product Promotion: A Guide
8 May 2025, Deya Bhattacharya
8 May 2025, Deya Bhattacharya
Trying to get people excited about your product can feel like an uphill task in today’s saturated market — and as many brands learn the hard way, social media campaigns alone aren’t a guarantee of success. The goal is to spark conversations around your product that generate momentum, reach new audiences, and nudge people towards the decisive act of a conversion. An underrated way to do so? The good old-fashioned event.
Trade shows and conferences aren’t just about demoing a product. They give you a unique opportunity for customer face time and media coverage that’s worth months of online networking. The numbers are compelling — 80% of customers view events as their top choice for discovering new products, and 77% trust brands more after an interaction at a live event. Whether you’re new to event-focused promotion or want to get more out of the events you attend, here’s our guide on how to invest in events that are truly worth your while.
Depending on the product you’re promoting and your priorities as a business, here are the main types of events worth looking into.
For industry-specific promotion and networking, it’s hard to beat trade shows. You get to showcase your product to a concentrated group of relevant audience members, many of whom are likely to reach out to you after the show for more details. Trade shows are also a great opportunity to build relationships with trade publications and specialised media outlets that might feature your product later on.
Conferences are more about conversations and knowledge sharing. They’re a good opportunity to showcase your thought leadership through presentations or panel discussions, and you get to interact with other thought leaders whom you could potentially collaborate with. Being featured at a prestigious industry conference is also a great selling point for media coverage.
For a low-cost alternative to in-person events, the webinar is ideal. These are highly focused events that let you showcase your product to a globally distributed audience in real-time and gauge their reactions through the comments and questions they post. Plus, webinars require your audience to sign up in advance, giving you valuable contact information for post-webinar communications and targeted follow-ups.
These are ideal for when you want to provide hands-on product guidance in a controlled setting to a smaller group of invested audience members. Plus, they’re a powerful way to generate case study material and testimonials from your participants.
As with any PR or marketing strategy, you need to be smart about how you approach each event and what you do after. Here are the steps to keep in mind.
Events of any kind cost money, so you want to make sure that you’re getting as much out of them as possible in terms of audience relevance, stage time, and publicity opportunities. As far as possible, pick events catering to your niche and your product offering. While “buzzier” events might feel like good exposure, you may actually get more face time in smaller events with a more tailored audience.
Is your main goal to generate leads? Seek industry partnerships? Get noticed by the media? Your goal will inform the way you approach your pre-event promotions and brand positioning, so be specific about this.
Have a clear set of tasks that you need to accomplish before the event, with milestones, desired outcomes, and deadlines. Assign each task to a specific team member so that everyone is clear about what they’re accountable for.
Once you’ve confirmed your event participation and have decided on your positioning and goals there, announce your participation on your social channels and to your email list. If there are specific parties you wish to meet with at the event, reach out and schedule meetings in advance. In the weeks leading up to the event, share teasers online about what attendees can expect from you.
If you’re looking to catch media attention, simply selling your product to them won’t do. Prepare a dedicated media kit in advance and appoint a spokesperson who can speak to the media on your behalf. You can also decide on any exclusive information you want to offer to priority media personnel to improve your chances of coverage.
Generating real-time content is easier than you think. Post updates on sessions you’ve hosted, share behind-the-scenes pictures, or live-stream your product demos. Encourage your team members to post about it as well, using event-specific hashtags.
Make the most of the face time you’re getting at the event by collecting data on your attendees and their feedback. You can set up QR codes that link to quick surveys, or request your attendees’ permission to be recorded sharing their responses. To encourage responses, you can offer a small incentive (like a gift card) to all who participate.
The 48 hours immediately after an event are the most critical for solidifying connections you’ve made at the event, as your brand is still fresh in the attendees’ mind. Send personalised follow-ups to all your key connections and share event recaps on your social media for those who couldn’t attend. If there were specific questions/requests your attendees raised, now is also the time to respond to them.
Events can generate a goldmine of content for months to come. You can convert your product presentations into bite-sized clips for sharing on social media, repurpose your talks into blog posts, or generate case studies out of the conversations you had with industry partners and potential customers.
All too often, we’ve seen brands invest considerable time and resources into events, only to get very little out of them. By keeping an eye out for these common mistakes, you can maximise your chances of success.
Events offer you a unique opportunity to transform your brand message into a tangible experience. When attendees get to see who you are and what you stand for, and physically interact with your products and your team, it creates the kind of emotional connection that no online promotion can ever achieve.
At Star Squared PR, we treat event participation as a key element of the brand narrative for our clients. We advise you on event selection, draft materials for promotion, share pre- and post-event press releases, and train your spokespeople on how to handle media conversations at events. Wherever you are in your event participation journey, we’d love to be your trusted partner and guide. Schedule a call today with our experienced team to know more.
Struggling to create buzz around your product in this crowded market? Your event strategy might hold the answer. In our latest blog post, we share practical strategies on how to transform trade shows, conferences, webinars and workshops into powerful PR opportunities for your brand.
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