Like every other industry, the pharmaceutical industry has also shifted to the virtual sphere for hosting significant events. Healthcare institutions have to organize various types of events & conferences throughout the year. However, doing this became a task after the world had to maintain social distance & face travel restrictions. What happened next is known by the world. The virtual events industry came to prevalence, and organizations across industries, including the healthcare industry, moved to the virtual event platforms.
Let us take you through some of the essential steps & tips to organizing a successful virtual healthcare conference. Waste no time and dive into the arena of virtual pharmaceutical events!
What is a Virtual Medical Conference?
A virtual medical conference is an online pharmaceutical or healthcare event that brings health experts, patients, exhibitors, and customers together over an immersive virtual environment. A virtual healthcare conference includes interactive sessions around a common event theme or subject.
In addition, a virtual pharmaceutical event can also be an immersive expo, showcasing healthcare equipment to global organizations & target audiences.
Relevance of Virtual Events for the Pharmaceutical Companies
Virtual Events come with numerous benefits for healthcare organizations. Here are some of the top reasons why virtual events are highly preferred for Medical & Pharmaceutical institutions:
#1 Greater ROI in fewer Costs
A virtual healthcare conference or medical expo enables the organizations to ensure a maximum ROI in fewer expenses. With reduced operating & marketing costs and eliminated requirements of various resources & arrangements, a virtual event is very beneficial for pharma companies.
#2 Simplified Management
Virtual events are a highly manageable format as the organizers don’t have to go through the hassle of making arrangements. The only significant decision-making required is choosing a suitable virtual event platform. Once the organizers have collaborated with a managed & customizable virtual event platform, they can leave everything up to the service providers. Therefore, virtual events provide pharma companies with simplified event management.
#3 Seamless Collaboration with Global Experts
Virtual medical conferences make collaboration with global industry professionals & experts super easy. Unlike an in-person event, organizers don’t have to spend extended time trying to convince or invite renowned speakers. As the event is organized virtually, famous speakers are easily available for the event, enhancing the event experience.
#4 Complete Assistance through Virtual Technology
The online events industry is filled with numerous platforms providing excellent virtual event solutions & services. However, the organizers can choose an all-in-one robust virtual event technology providing outstanding virtual functionalities. The right virtual event platform helps the users create an immersive, engaging, and interactive virtual event for their healthcare organization.
#5 Access to Entire Event Data & Report
By taking their medical & pharma events virtual, organizations get access to complete event data & analytics. From attendees’ footprints during the event to the event element that saw the most impressions, the organizers can track each aspect of the medical conference.
All in all, virtual events can ensure higher brand visibility & greater return on investment for diverse medical & healthcare organizations.
But what does it take to host a successful virtual medical conference? To help you with the answer, we have covered some of the best tips that will help you organize a seamless online pharma event.
10 Must-Know Tips to Host a Successful Virtual Medical Conference
#1 Understand the Logic Behind Your Virtual Medical Event
Defining your goals & objectives behind organizing the online event plays a huge role in ensuring seamless event planning & execution. Therefore, begin by defining your ultimate purpose so you can move ahead with effective event planning. Create a well-thought list of objectives for each aspect of your event.
#2 Strategize Relevant Content
From discussion topics & documents to promotional & instructive content, create a well-planned strategy for your event content. Ensure that the information and content you deliver to the attendees during the event is valuable, informative, and relevant. Remember that the CONTENT IS ALWAYS THE KING! Few irrelevant information, presentations, or documents can lead to your attendees having a negative event experience. Therefore, make sure you create a proper strategy for the event content.
#3 Consider Targeting and Inviting E-Patients for the Conference
E-patients are simply health-conscious people who look for health-related information and updates over the internet. These consumers leverage various digital tools to stay updated and access information to maintain good health. Therefore, e-patients should be a primary target audience for any virtual medical event or healthcare conference. Targeting these customers will not only help you drive maximum event participation but also an extended presence in the target market.
#4 Pick a Robust & Experienced Virtual Conference Platform
Choosing the right virtual event technology is one of the most important steps to ensuring the success of your online medical conference event. Hence, pick a platform that provides outstanding engagement tools, a safe virtual venue, excellent interactivity, and robust networking functionalities. The organizer should select a virtual conference platform that is highly customizable, scalable, and fully managed service. Picking a platform that provides these features will help you host a successful online conference event.
#5 Work Out an Excellent Promotional Strategy
Planning out a well-strategized promotional strategy is another factor you should focus on while organizing a virtual event. You can use various digital tools & ideas to promote your event as an effective promotional strategy. Doing this will help you drive maximum registrations for the same. Here are some of the best promotional strategies that can be extremely beneficial for you:
- Leverage social media platforms
- Run engaging contests
- Create a branded landing page
- Partner with experts
- Run live polls in the medical groups
- Send swag & goodies
#6 Invite Expert Speakers
You would want your attendees to have an engaging & memorable event experience at your virtual medical conference. And the speakers or presenters you invite to lead the event sessions play a significant role in ensuring the audience-engagement. Therefore, make sure that you choose professional & experienced speakers for your virtual medical conference. One reason why this is extremely important is that an experienced speaker or presenter will know exactly how to deal & interact with the virtual attendees.
#7 Provide Interactive Opportunities at Your Virtual Pharma Event
Interactivity can truly be a game-changer for your online event. Providing your attendees with interactive features during the event will help you create an immersive event experience. Using these functionalities, you can keep your attendees engrossed in the event, providing them more value. Mentioned below are some of the best ways to boost interactivity at your virtual medical conference:
- Live Polls
- Q&A Session
- Ask a Question Functionality
- Real-Time Emoticon Reactions
- Live Trivia
- Multi-Format Communication
- 1:1 and Group Chat
#8 Incorporate Engaging Virtual Functionalities
Make your virtual pharma event highly engaging by using the virtual functionalities provided by the virtual event platform. Engagement and networking are two of the most crucial success-defining elements of any virtual event. If your attendees & participants don’t feel engaged in the event, they might end up having a negative event experience, further leading to a negative impression. Therefore, it becomes vital to make your online healthcare event engaging, while providing enough networking opportunities. Here are some excellent ways you can achieve this goal:
- Making industry-related relevant content available for download
- Helping the pharma exhibitors seamlessly interact with the attendees through branded exhibit booths
- Provide breakout rooms to get the interaction going
- Keep the sessions of your virtual healthcare conference to the point while also providing enough breaks
Make way for networking at your virtual pharmaceutical event by using these exceptional virtual networking functionalities:
- AI Matchmaking to help your attendees find relevant contacts & networks
- Advanced Search Filters to help the attendees find what they are looking for by adding filters to the search bar
- Networking Tables to enable the users to have valuable discussions in groups
- Business Card Exchange to help users share their contact details in one go
- B2B Meeting Scheduler to let your attendees schedule meetings as per other participants’ available slots
#9 Make Content Available On-Demand
Making the content of your virtual medical conference available on-demand will help you extend the life & reach of your event. Doing this is next to impossible in case of an on-site event. However, at a virtual event, you get the opportunity to save all your event content and make it available for users. Not just this, but you also have the choice to monetize the content. So, use this window of opportunity and maximize the reach of your event, making it accessible for a longer time.
#10 Don’t Miss Out on Event Analytics & Reports
Access to entire event data reports and analytics is one feature that is provided by almost all excellent virtual event platforms. Using this functionality, you can not only analyze the efficacy of each aspect of your event but also make more practical decisions in your future events. Therefore, don’t miss out on using this functionality. Make sure you ask your virtual event platform provider to include this feature in your virtual medical conference. Adapting to the right event technology and strategies can enable you to organize a super-successful virtual pharmaceutical expo or medical exhibition. Go on, bring these best practices & tips together, and we ensure an event execution to remember!
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