How to reach 3 million healthcare professionals in Europe, with Meetings

How to reach 3 million healthcare professionals in Europe with meetings

2022 will be a face-to-face meeting year... or will it? As we start the first quarter of 2022, there is undoubtedly a trend towards a return to in-person interactions, such as the Lung Science Conference 10-13 March 2022 organised by the European Respiratory Society in Portugal.

If we look back to 2021 there were a number of large-scale meetings such as ESCRS in Amsterdam with 4,300 in-person and 3,000 virtual participants. We also saw many face to face meetings focused on internal reward, recognition, and motivational programmes. For some organisations it seemed it was party time in 2021. These mostly internally focused types of meetings were often intended to correct the imbalance caused by an increase in the number of people working from home and, isn’t that fantastic? The feeling of an organisation putting its arms around its teams and saying, “We value you and want to spend time with you.”

Every internal meeting, conducted in-person brings us closer to a return, in volume, to those that we provide for both in-person and external participants. It may be creeping up on us, but the thought of reaching out to those we want to

influence, suggesting an in-person meeting is getting just that little bit easier. As we build an agenda, look to the value it brings to participants and consider logistical steps. There is an enthusiasm to return to face-to-face, particularly from content providers who have been looking at screens, not necessarily eager faces in a physical setting, for over 2-years.

With the steps that the meetings infrastructure has created to be COVID safe the decision to plan an in-person meeting is now a nuanced one not just, as previously, one of budget, availability of speakers and the relevance and attractiveness of the content. From organisation to organisation there are different drivers and appetites to return to meetings. Some of the meeting types that are already planning to be in-person in 2022 are those that rely on the sharing of clinical best practises through meetings, specifically interactions that are workshop heavy or driven by the business case to connect groups together in Hybrid formats. The events in which you, the reader, are involved are not likely to be far behind.

In this article, we will expand on one of the consequences of the COVID19 pandemic: the opportunity to deliver meeting content to more people via virtual meetings, and how organisations can take advantage of this expanded reach through a new model to satisfy the needs of “bums on seats” and “eyeballs on screens” as we return to in-person meetings.

So where does reach fit in?

Extended reach is one of the most significant changes brought about by the COVID19 pandemic in the sharing of scientific information via the online meeting. We are suddenly confronted with new challenges: technology, engagement, and the ability to deliver online meetings to larger participant numbers than before the pandemic. Available budget is no longer a determining fact to the number of people that could “attend” meetings. We can now bring content to those who were previously perhaps, for reasons of geography or funds unable to access it. As a result, reach is now a critical factor.

It is right to ask the question, do we feel the need to offer both in-person and live online content to this increased number of participants, were they the right “consumers” of the content and will we continue to regard expanding our reach as strategically important?

So, how many people are we talking about when we think about the target audience for this outreach? The answer, at least in Europe, is that we have 3 million* healthcare professionals, including hospital doctors and general practitioners. Add nurses and other healthcare workers to that list, and we see that the World Health Organization estimates there are 10-15 million healthcare professionals worldwide. With evolving healthcare eco-systems, more treatment options, and longer lives, with more individuals who can and need to access them, communication reach is critical. The right content to the right people, in particular!

Note on HCP numbers

We have used open source public records outlining the numbers of hospital doctors and GP’s in 36 European countries. The number of HCP’s is used to highlight the potential of reach and is subject to variances based on how other reports may calculate HCP numbers.Sources: * Statistica.com Eurostat - ec.europa.eu

Richard Evans of the global medical communications agency NexGen Healthcare does not want to return to pre-pandemic thinking; instead, he wants to distil the best practises in how healthcare professionals have successfully utilised their time, as well as other trends and preferences that he can see, to effectively use online and face-to-face formats to reach historic and new participants.

To make your reach strategies successful here are some of Richard’s top tips:

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Remember you are now talking, not to a generation, but a cohort who are increasingly tech savvy and choosy about the time they will spend traveling for meetings. This opens up the need to provide a level of choice of quality content touchpoints without blowing the budget.

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Provide not just a backup but a key part of your plan by providing content on-demand. If you build it, your target audiences will not just come to an event – they will also engage with your on-line content that can wrap around your event. The marketing/medical plan should communicate every reason to continue to interact with your target audiences beyond a live meeting of any format.

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Recognise changes. Learning is high on the list of healthcare professionals’ reasons to spend their time at meetings and that means utilising educational approaches, in all meeting formats. Speakers have an even higher degree of contribution to success on-line as they did in face-to-face scenarios. Becoming adept at the techniques to present information, both on-line and in face-toface environments is key. After a significant amount of being polled, asked opinion and engaged on-line

Create a marketing/medical communications plan that is as pandemic proof as possible, taking into account the rise of variants and potential quarantines. The ability to talk to your target participants, budgets and business effectiveness are at risk if you don’t.

It is important to commit fully to face to face meetings, if they fit your plans, as tinkering risks simply not providing the interactions participants want. The risk is they don’t want to return to future interactions having written off your abilities to provide a good content experience. The potential of reaching existing and new consumers of your content is then compromised.

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And finally … fear of failure is failure. It is time to be different, stand out in the crowd. 5,000 hits on a website isn’t value. The right people, engaging with you in the way they want, underpinned by data, will better deliver on your objectives and your strategic outcomes.

By focusing on at least these areas, you can create a meeting programme that addresses the needs of your target audiences and reaches the right people through content and meeting experiences that resonate with them.

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We talked to experts in the field of medical meetings to hear from them about what reach means to their organisations.

Here are some of Cerstin’s tips to ensure that the potential of enhancing the reach of your meetings can be realised:

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How HCPs consume knowledge today has changed. As mentioned above, the willingness to sit through hour long presentations is gone. HCPs want to have access to knowledge in their time and when and how they need it. If attending F2F meetings expectations are to co-create, network and exchange with peers.

When planning a meeting look through three lenses:

a.) The Business lens to cover objectives and goals – embedded and fitting your overall strategy.

b.) Then look through the lens of your attendees’ personas – who are the “usual suspects” you invite, why and who are they? Which attendees DON’T you have and want to have – what are their needs?

c.) And the third lens – design the delegate journey for your attendee types. And this in both the worlds you engage with them – the “in-person world” and the “virtual world”.

In your hybrid events you may want to create two experiences for your attendees – a virtual one and an “in person” one. This will define the format and design of the event, of the sessions and of the attendee engagement and interactions during sessions.

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In the delegate journey you define how you get your message in front of people’s minds. The success is defined by relevance for HCPs and them identifying “that applies to me”.

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“One size fits all meetings” are over - Healthcare Professionals request for relevance for them in their specific field. Depending on what content is to be disseminated, we recommend in-person meeting sessions becoming shorter (to the point) and create more on-demand content providing options to match the time and needs of HCPs.

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National, Regional and International approaches –the era of the Pandemic has accelerated the sharing of information across borders in an on-line format. As we return to in-person we can see that the focus of content has narrowed so that some large scale international meetings are changing their model and focusing on hub and spoke formats to address the needs of participants across a regional or international demographic. In the case of medical society congresses this is particularly prevalent and opens up a new world where the core scientific and industry sessions can reach many more people than previously.

Other factors

I couldn’t contribute to a conversation about meetings without mentioning some broader topics than reach. As we all know the success of any meeting, in-person or online is often in the detail.

Approval planning time – there is sometimes a disconnect between the notice required by a meeting participant and the flow of approved meeting information. A save the date with information on speakers, agenda and learning outcomes must be available 6-8 weeks before any live meeting, preferably earlier. This allows time for approval processes and to convert the maximum potential reach of available participants. Later than 4-6 weeks can dramatically reduce the availability and invitation acceptance of target participants.

In venue transfer of knowledge: Slick marketing of COVID preparedness is only as good as how this is cascaded to others, generally onproperty, who can seamlessly transfer promises into consistent action.

COVID confidence – participants to meetings will need an element of confidence building that any face-to-face activity has thought about their version of safety. Which, adapts to changes and provides meeting participants with up-to-date information. Build confidence and regardless of changing circumstances the chances of participants attending in-person are increased.

Cerstin Steindorf, Global Healthcare Director at MCI is experienced in the strategies and operational delivery of healthcare sector meetings and recognises that good meeting experiences positively impact reach.

SummaryThere is some complexity ahead of us to build strategies to navigate a parallel future of meeting formats but the prize is a tailored, relevant, valuable experience for those that attend our meetings live, on-demand and hybrid in format. This complexity will drive us to offer choice, some on-line and some in-person, to respond to the demands of participants, wherever they are located, in the most effective way for them. Sharing powerful, life-changing content that will have a long-term impact on an increased group of meeting participants.

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