Effective Distribution of Press Releases for Music Festival Entities.

Every day a plethora of press releases and news about music festival line-ups get published in the media, both online and offline. Many of these releases appear on news aggregation websites and are just exact copies of the release. How can festival organisers get their press release to appear in relevant targeted media with additional quality commentary.

A release sent to 20,000 news outlets, and journalists can be very hit and miss with minimal actual coverage. It is more important that the festival entity reaches the right journalists, publications, or influencers with access to their potential audience in a timely manner. A targeted approach combined with newsworthy content will always be the most valuable approach to any press release.

Why Press Releases Matter.
The press release should work in tandem with other activities and forms a key part of the entire marketing mix. These all aim to create awareness about a forthcoming event, and the release will usually highlight dates, location, and headliners, for example. Getting a press release published obtains media coverage at no cost and can reduce overall adverting spend considerably. In online media, a published release can usually include links to ticketing platforms, helping to generate ticket sales. Other benefits include relationship building with key journalists and influencers plus enhancing the festival's SEO.

Planning and Content.
The press release should not be a random stand-alone activity but part of the festival's greater marketing and communications plan. Key announcements about dates, line-ups and ticket availability will always feature in online advertising campaigns and social media channels with the press release being a complementary activity. A 12-month press release plan should be devised so that the festival's marketing team has a schedule of press release dates. During quiet periods, festival marketing teams can create releases about sustainability achievements or festival-goer survey results, for example, as long as they are presented with a relevant and interesting angle. Most festival entities will need to provide a media kit that journalists often request; this will need to be kept up to date and usually includes festival logos, photographs, biographies, festival factsheets, and key statistics for example. In the planning phase, the content of each release may be vague but as release dates approach, quality content will need to be written. Professional press release writers should be used where possible because they can usually turn a boring news item into something genuinely newsworthy to make the release more interesting. If the festival's own marketing team are unable to do this, the services of a professional PR Agency are often employed to write and distribute releases appropriately; however, these services can be expensive.

Target Media and Distribution.
All music festival entitles should focus on building strong relationships with key journalists and influencers who have access via publications and social media channels to their target audience. Offering exclusive news access to festival founders and curated artists through interviews will always be attractive to journalists who operate in a very competitive environment. Inviting key journalists and influences onto a festival site during the build-up phase or offering press passes to the event can help to generate articles and news without the festival marketing team having to write a release. When the festival has a secluded release about line-ups, for example, they should coordinate with artists and sponsors who will make their own releases at the same time. This coordinated approach will always help to achieve coverage. It is sometimes possible to tweak the content of a release so that it has specific relevance to the type of media outlet being targeted; this approach is favorable to the mass release of an identical piece. The journalists and influencers that have the best relationship with the festival should always be targeted first rather than through a mass press release service. This personalised approach is more likely to result in favorable coverage.

Measuring Success.
The measurement of press release success can be very subjective and often depends on how coverage is monitored and reported on. Some of this monitoring may be a manual process although there are software resources available that can easily monitor and report on any online coverage. Whether the festival marketing team uses a software monitoring platform or not, the data collected still needs to be analysed to arrive at a measurable conclusion. Factors that need to be considered when assessing any data would typically include editorial pick up, published mentions, traffic generated for ticket sales, social shares, and the advertising media value achieved, for example. Data collected and analysed can help to produce an ROI report on a festival's press release programme.

For festival organisers planning their next event using a software management platform like Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need manage every aspect of their event logistics. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The Festival Pro platform is easy to use and has comprehensive features with specific modules for managing artists, contractors, venues/stages, vendors, volunteers, sponsors, guestlists, ticketing, site planning, cashless payments and contactless ordering.

Image by to Maor Attias via Pexels

<< Back to articles