What’s the value of conference?

Authored by: John Branston

More than ever, we are being asked to demonstrate the value of specific activities to the business. Anyone attending conferences and key meetings inherently senses the huge importance of the opportunity to engage with the wider community of those with a stake in treating disease, but when asked “What does it achieve?”, how do you know?

It can be interesting to measure attendance at symposia, or footfall and dwell time on booths, but ultimately success is measured based on the impact on your equity or ‘stock’ in your customers’ minds and the impact on clinical decision-making among target patients.

Primary market research specialists are well versed in uncovering and measuring physician thinking and behaviours. Conference presents a massive opportunity to investigate these at a time when outside influences are dialled down and the key principles of current and future treatment options are in the spotlight.

What ‘sticks’ after exposure to a wealth of information in a short space of time? How does it translate into choices made in the front line of patient care? What was the reaction to new data? Did your booth work as a place to communicate key principles of treatment? Were you able to add to your credentials in the face of excitement around future competitors?

The objectives that our clients set for their conference presence vary widely. Whatever you set out to achieve, there are options for measuring the impact of your activities. Key planks of our conference research approach include:

• Full flexibility of engagement including pre- and post-conference questionnaires to measure impact, as well as mini-surveys to capture in-the-moment reaction during conference;
• Focused, future-oriented questions related to specific patient profiles, making use of our background in syndicated patient chart studies to build key profiles;
• Ability to focus research on your key prescribers through screening or list-matching;
• Using techniques such as spoken word response and AI analysis to get rapid feedback on how elements of your conference presence landed;
• Questionnaires that combine standardised evaluation metrics (e.g. to allow cross-meeting performance comparisons) and detail feedback on specific aspects of conference engagement.

More fundamental questions around the value of conference can be answered with a behavioural science approach: We have run research to test levels of message recall A) within the first two weeks after the event and B) 4-6 weeks after the event (in a separate physician sample). In the same project, we compared the feedback of C) physicians who attended conference in person with D) physicians who consumed conference content in the virtual setting. The results will help shape our client’s content strategy at future meetings, leading to increased value attached to that conference activity.

When someone asks you – or if you ask yourself – “What is the value of our conference presence?”, no matter what your goals, there is a research approach to help you get answers.

For more information about Conference Research, contact john.branston@researchpartnership.com