Marketing to Healthcare Conference Attendees Is it Worth the Effort?

Did you know that 83% of doctors prefer conferences as a source of information about new medical developments?

It is therefore no surprise that healthcare conferences have traditionally been a key exposure point for pharmaceutical and medical device brands.

Physicians and other healthcare professionals attend conferences for several reasons:

• Stay on top of trends
• Network with other HCPs
• Obtain continuing medical education units
• Gather information from vendors

Though some have hinted that medical conference attendance has declined, physicians go to at least three conferences each year. This high frequency would suggest that healthcare conference marketing remains a viable activity for brands.

Benefits of healthcare conference marketing

Congresses build community. And that works in your favor. At a minimum, conference attendees can help with word-of-mouth marketing. So getting your brand in front of conference attendees can be crucial to a successful drug or device launch.

But what are the key benefits of conference attendance for your brand? For one, being an exhibitor builds awareness, encourages brand loyalty, and fosters brand-physician relationships. Event sponsorship can be another effective avenue to brand exposure. Outside of the exhibit hall, meetings with HCPs help build rapport and deepen relationships.

So by and large, conference marketing can be a productive – though expensive – lead generation channel.

But not every potential lead attends these conferences. And those that do may easily forget your brand among the hundreds of other touchpoints they experience at an event. So how do you maximize ROI around healthcare conferences?

Post-conference marketing: the path to success

The answer is extending your presence beyond the event.

Just because the conference has ended doesn’t mean your related marketing efforts are over. Post-conference marketing is one of the more important aspects of getting a better ROI from your marketing spend. Yes, conferences continue to be an important lead generation tactic, but without proper follow up and continued brand exposure the results from that event may not be what you expect.

In addition to conference attendees, there is an even larger population with interest in the information delivered and presented at these events. These non-attendees must find other ways to get that information after the event is over.

So how do you continue to share your brand after the event is done? And what about those potential leads that didn’t attend?

PracticeUpdate Conference Series

Elsevier provides an opportunity to reach those healthcare professionals. The PracticeUpdate conference series is a high-quality, 20+ page publication recapping the most popular worldwide healthcare conferences.

The publication makes an effective leave-behind for pharmaceutical and medical device brand teams – sharing medical research, trends, new product launches, and more from the top 50 international conferences and congresses. It can also be used as an effective lead generation source for attendees and non-attendees alike.

In fact, Elsevier’s PracticeUpdate advertising options can help you reach forward-thinking physicians throughout our global network. Whatever specialty you target, we offer versatile content formats to suit your objectives and brand strategy – delivering your message to readers alongside other valued and engaging information.

You can align your brand with the latest findings from the world’s leading medical meetings and congresses with ad placement or by sponsoring various PracticeUpdate Conference email newsletters.  Print or digital editions of the conference series publications are available.

Learn more

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Article Written by: Alex Brown