Figure 1: HCP responses on the importance of in-person vs virtual congress attendance as sources of scientific information

Pharmaceutical companies must also address the barriers faced by HCPs to both capture their attention at congresses and maximize the impact of content beyond the event. These barriers include:

• Information Overload: The volume of information presented at congresses can be overwhelming, making it difficult for attendees to retain and apply important content.

• Access Barriers: Many HCPs worldwide encounter time, cost, and resource constraints for attending congresses, whether in-person or virtually. This limits the reach and impact of clinically relevant content.

As medical communications experts, we need to address HCP barriers by generating awareness, orchestrating event experiences, and sustaining engagement. These pillars of a successful congress strategy should be unified under an overarching vision across the congress lifecycle:

• Pre-congress engagement:

  Initiate strong engagement by reaching the target audience through their preferred channels ahead of the congress. Impactful activities can generate anticipation, gauge interest levels, promote registration, and effectively set the stage for successful delegate engagement at the event.

  Activities might include non-targeted communications, such as a LinkedIn post announcing your company’s participation at a congress, and personalized communications, such as a personalized email from an MSL.

• During the congress:

  Strategically design and execute experiences to optimize participation and interaction. Aim for an integrated onsite experience which builds a learning journey for your delegates at the congress. This includes developing a cohesive plan for presentation and exhibition booth themes, ensuring a consistent presence for your company and product.

  Offer numerous opportunities for HCPs to engage with your team and request information, using digital tools such as interactive screens at the booth to facilitate these engagements. Additionally, promote engagement through interactive sessions, hands-on demonstrations, and networking opportunities.

• Post-congress engagement:
  

  Sustain engagement with follow-up communications that reinforce standout messages and insights and help to build lasting relationships. For example, social media posts and personalized emails thanking attendees for visiting the booth with links to downloadable content.

  Promote the sharing of assets and advocacy to ease the translation of learnings into actionable clinical practice, targeting both congress delegates and expanding outreach to relevant non-attending HCPs. 90% of HCPs say access to information beyond the event helps them apply new medical approaches faster¹.

2: Coordinate expert engagement and speakerships, ensuring you show up as one company

Medical congresses represent valuable opportunities to engage with global, regional and national experts to share advances, discuss potential collaborations and build relationships. However, our insights show that industry colleagues feel intentional interactions with external experts can be patchy, non-specific and at times, uncoordinated – a missed opportunity for all.

Cross-functional planning among Medical Affairs, R&D and Commercial colleagues to map and guide all expert engagements at congresses can ensure a meaningful experience for your experts, with standout topics raised and priority activities supported though planned interactions that build transparent partnerships.

Even better, the development of an annual expert engagement plan, covering all congresses and planned engagements, speaker sessions and initiatives, will support expert interactions that are purposeful and contribute to long-term relationship building.

An external expert strategy, engagement plan and internal processes for alignment, along with the provision of dedicated onsite resource to coordinate and track your engagement strategy, will result in intentional and mutually valuable expert interactions at congresses and across the year. These advance research, support education for the clinical community, and surface vital insights to inform strategy.

3: You CAN Measure Congress Impact

Establishing clear objectives, systematically collecting data at every stage of your congress activity, and using insights to evaluate and refine strategies are crucial steps for measuring congress impact. However, with limited “hard” data points beyond attendance, it can be challenging to evaluate congress activity, and define improvements for the next time.

Top considerations for measuring congress impact:

• Is the congress right for your target audience? Use share of scientific voice – a strategic measure employed by Medical Affairs teams to track and optimize the impact of activities related to evidence generation, dissemination, and expert engagement – to identify congresses where the content and attendees align with the team's objectives.

• Is your content effective and engaging? Assess HCP engagement with your content, by specialty, at symposia and booths. This helps determine the effectiveness of your content and its relevance to your audience.
  
  
• At symposia: Use of pre- and post-event evaluations, polling questions and offering QR-code accessed content enable evaluation of your content’s quality, relevance and impact on HCP education.
• At booths: Measure interest in your content by using QR and XR codes on materials, tracking sign-ups, and capturing digital interactions and requests for content.
  
  
• Are you generating the desired engagement and discussions? Exhibition booths offer a great opportunity for HCPs to seek out your company and additional information on data they find interesting. Yet often, booth staffing schedules can be ad hoc, resulting in gaps in team member availability and ineffective conversation tracking. Use digital tools to enable HCPs to book and track booth meetings, along with requests for information, sign-ups for booth activities, and even the number of coffees provided! These metrics can give you insights into the level of interest and engagement from HCPs and which content is resonating.
  
  
• Social listening: Analyse social media conversations to see which topics are resonating at the congress. This can provide real-time feedback on the effectiveness of your content and help you adjust your strategy accordingly.
  
  
• Post-congress engagement: Monitor engagement with your enduring content, requests for more information, and follow-up meetings after the congress. This helps gauge the long-term impact of your presence and the effectiveness of your follow-up strategies.

By focusing on these core areas, pharmaceutical companies can measure and optimize congress impact, ensuring that efforts are not only effective but also contribute to building lasting relationships with HCPs and experts. This strategic approach enables companies to make data-driven decisions, enhance their presence at future congresses, and deliver information designed to improve patient care.

Conclusion

Navigating the complexities of congress engagement requires a strategic approach, leveraging multiple touchpoints to deeply engage your target audience. By making content work as hard as possible both on-site and beyond the congress, providing opportunities for expert engagement and planning networking approaches carefully, and measuring and optimizing these efforts through clear objectives and creative data capture, congress impact can be improved, measured and evolved.

¹ The Future of HCP Engagement Impact, EPG Health, an IQVIA Business, 2023