After some of the important 2019 conferences have come to an end, it’s time to reevaluate your product’s or corporate messaging and decide how it fits within the trending insights and newsworthy industry knowledge you gathered from your experiences.
Learning about the appropriate evolution of your marketing message post-congress is key to maintaining its buzz—from the use of dedicated conference hashtags to employing conference insights. As your marketing strategy matures, your message should develop awareness tactics and integrate validation studies that back it up.
Relate Your Message to Conference Insights
Right after the conference, review and study conference materials and any notes you might have taken, look to conference coverage reports for highlighted takeaways and breakout insights, and tweak your message to reflect what you learned. This is still an ideal time to latch onto those dedicated hashtags and continue the conversation past the conference.
Conferences are all about big marketing and networking opportunities, but when all is said and done, if you can make a connection between your product and the enduring conference buzz, you’ll discover an audience that is thirsty for more.
If you can communicate the relevance of your product in the context of important industry discoveries and apply it to a real-world setting, you’ll find your message generating some well-earned attention.
Mix Up Content Supporting Your Message
When updating your message according to industry trends and the information you gathered at the conference, be mindful of your content. Try mixing up different types of content that support your message. Include original content, links to news articles and websites, or user-generated content to lend an authentic voice and personal narrative to your product messaging.
Big industry conferences do a good job of balancing social and informational aspects for a pretty intense experience, and post-conference messaging and content should follow suit. Offer content that emphasizes both a social and a professional or educational tone, and be sure to keep it current.
Most importantly, communicate quality to build trust in your brand. Use consistent elements, be it color constructs, graphics, or a tagline, and make sure any sources you use are reputable and relate to your messaging goals.
Target Audience
To be selective about who receives your message, make sure you understand your audience and use mapping tools and targeting techniques to get the right message out to the right people. This approach further allows you to personalize content and channels of communication.
A new goal for pharma communications companies is to establish their own communities of interest. In this sense, a curated audience is more likely to contribute to the conversation and encourage group involvement. This is a key strategy for increasing collective knowledge for future and ongoing messaging purposes.
Attach Your Message to Awareness Campaigns
After you’ve garnered attention for relevant content bathed in post-conference insight, make your long-term message about awareness. In other words, now that you’ve increased communications and found your audience, create opportunities to educate about your product.
At this stage, your messaging goals should go beyond promoting your product or capturing the right audience; an interactive campaign that raises awareness through meaningful, educational content is the best strategy. This is especially effective for newly launched products or products that have new uses or indications.
Educating your audience about the benefits of your product has another advantage: establishing brand loyalty. This extends to educating your audience about the medical condition your product benefits, creating comfort as well as value around your product.
Evolve Your Message to Validate Product Efficacy
After launching your product—and after you’ve achieved awareness—use messaging to validate your product efficacy. This is the last stage in the evolution of your post-conference marketing message, and it’s necessary for maximizing the acceptance of your product in the market space.
Validation involves the collection, analysis, and presentation of data that enlighten the audience to the product’s performance potential. In an increasingly skeptical landscape, this is practically a requirement for pharma companies.
A validation study provides powerful marketing fodder, but it can also inform pre-launch activities by binding your audience together through a shared interest: seeing your product through the pipeline. Validation is a process that continues through product launch but should enter your marketing strategy as your message becomes increasingly specific.
With these tips, you’ll be able to reenergize your message post-congress and keep your products relevant.