Farm Expo, which saw its inaugural running on March 6th at the Kent Showground, is a new farm machinery, supplies, and services show for the South East, and is aiming to become the region’s premier such event.
If future years are anything like this year, Farm Expo will soon achieve that goal.
Alongside Kent County Agricultural Society’s inhouse comms team, we put together a schedule of press announcements around the show and the different events taking place that we thought would capture the media’s attention.
Kent County Agricultural Society made the job of promoting Farm Expo easier by ensuring top-quality guests would be speaking on the day including Nick von Westenholz, the NFU’s Director of EU Exit and International Trade, managing partner at TWB Farms, Clive Bailye, and Stephen Carr, a Sussex-based farmer and publican, and columnist for South East Farmer and Farmers Weekly.
We began by contacting all relevant journalist and editors, from the national and regional agricultural media to the local press, to brief them about the new event and the announcements to come.
We sourced photographs from the society’s archive, because all press releases should be accompanied by good quality photographs (no exceptions!), and so, within a few days of Red Stag Media being appointed, the first press release was on its way to the media.
We staggered the press announcements to increase our chances of coverage and the number of people we reached. News of the new event was the first press release to go out, followed by announcing the speakers.
But, as with all the best PR campaigns, remaining flexible to change is key, as you never know what is round the corner.
As we were working on the third press release, it came to light that Haynes Agricultural – Kent’s oldest farm machinery supplier – was to kick off its centenary celebrations at Farm Expo.
And what is more, they would be unveiling a special edition tractor to mark the occasion at the show.
As ex-journalists, our news senses were tingling and we seized on the story. It played well into what Farm Expo is all about – farm machinery, of course, but also celebrating Kent’s rich agricultural history.
With help from the society’s comms team, we got quotes from Haynes and put this story out as our third press release. It was quickly picked up by the media and made for a great piece about Kent’s oldest farm machinery supplier supporting its newest farm machinery show.
Farm Expo 2019 was a tremendous success, attracting more than 2,500 people. It has already been confirmed for next year and will no doubt become the premier farm machinery event that the organisers hoped for, as well as a major fixture in Kent’s annual agricultural calendar.
After putting out a follow-up press release, we analysed the coverage.
Farm Expo was featured in a range of print and online publications, including Farmers Weekly, Farming UK, Farmers Guide, NFU British Farmers and Grower, Kent Online, Kent Business, Made in Kent and others.
According to our independent cuttings service, the total reach of the coverage was 1,065,328 people, and it attained a value of £18,622.
It’s always nice to get good feedback but in this case, it was particularly welcome.
“It’s been great working with you, I’m really pleased with what we achieved. I’ll certainly get in touch should we need anything in the future,” our client wrote.
Working with Kent County Agricultural Society was great for us too, and we wish them all the best for the future of Farm Expo, and all the other events they stage in the beautiful Garden of England.