30 Jul 5 Questions to Ask to Maximize Visibility During Your Next Medical Meeting
As summer winds down, professional societies, healthcare providers, and researchers are gearing up for some of the largest, agenda-setting medical meetings of the year. These gatherings serve as pivotal moments for healthcare practitioners to network, exchange knowledge, and delve into the latest clinical research in specialty medicine and health tech.
Beyond organizing cutting-edge research presentations, interactive workshops, and networking events, professional societies play a crucial role in encouraging media to cover new research findings and clinical trials. Below are five questions to ask from a communications lens to gauge how prepared your organization is to respond to unexpected challenges, generate media coverage, and execute an impactful meeting.
- How are you keeping your members informed and actively involved?
Professional societies can face challenges in keeping their members engaged and seeing the value of membership. To actively engage members, think beyond newsletters and email updates. Transforming members into messengers or ambassadors creates a sense of ownership and can bolster outreach efforts, especially ahead of medical meetings. Read this insight for tips on building a successful ambassador program.
- Have you invited patients and caregivers to share their stories?
Patient and caregiver perspectives provide a rich, contextual understanding of the lived experience of individuals with medical conditions and moves the narrative beyond scientific data. Offer flexible formats for sharing stories, such as written narratives or video recordings and be sure to gain full consent from the patient or caregiver with clear indication of how and where their story will be used.
- How are you involving the local community and media of your host city in your program?
Creating a local media opportunity can generate visibility and good will for your society especially if the local health needs align with your overall awareness goals can still amplify your meeting significantly within your target geographic area. To create a local media halo, consider tactics like offering exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes access, or unique perspectives relevant to local journalists. You can also hold an event on-site that’s open to the public, such as a health screening or early career programming, and invite local media to attend to generate coverage.
- Do you have a trend-focused press program?
Media are keen to report on trends, groundbreaking research findings, and clinical trials that address high-profile health issues. Leverage your position as host to develop a press program highlighting key trends, including topics of greatest media interest. You can further bring these trends to life by sharing patient perspectives, commentary from leading experts, and new guidelines or consensus statements.
- Have you performed an audit of the issues landscape?
An issues audit serves as a strategic tool to identify and prioritize key issues that are of interest or concern to stakeholders, patients, and attendees ahead of the meeting, including clinical challenges, policy or regulatory changes, patient care concerns, and public health issues. From there, create a comprehensive communication plan and response protocol that outlines the communications cadence and spokespeople both internally and externally.
BRG has a long track record of successfully managing press programs for medical meetings and scientific sessions. Learn how we can set you up for success from start to finish by clicking here.
